My friend seems to have dropped off the face of the planet

I haven’t heard from her in a month, neither have two other mutual friends of ours. We’re not sure if we should be worried or pissed.

A little background is needed:
Karla has never been known to be the most responsible or dependable person. She’s not exactly flighty, she just doesn’t really look at the consequences of her actions. She’s the type of person that will quit a job because she’s bored with it without looking for another one to replace it. She’s been known to start back at classes at the beginning of the semester and then drop out around midterms. Her decisions haven’t exactly been the best, especially when it comes to the guys she dates. She has good intentions for the most part, but she always seems to end up getting herself into one whole after another, leaving her friends there to try to help her out. But she has never just disappeared.

Last April I got engaged to the guy I had been seeing off and on for the past five years. Karla was the self appointed maid of honor and was happy about the whole thing. I didn’t mind her assuming the role. We had been best friends for 7 years (which is a long time for me being an army brat), it was only natural that it would be her.

Over the summer though things started to change. It was the typical she met a guy scenario. She began drinking heavily and often. It didn’t help that she was working in a bar. She told me about him and how wonderful he was. She told me about his past, which wasn’t exactly flattering and didn’t leave me with a good impression of him. Basically he was kicked out of his house when he was 14, lived by running stuff for the local dealers, got caught skimming off of the packages, married his girlfriend at the time, joined the army. She got sick of everything and wanted to go home, so she left him, took his money and his truck, but not before she got pregnant. It all sounds like a bad episode of Jerry Springer. Supposedly he was a player, but he was different with Karla… of course this was what Karla was telling me.

My impression of him went from bad to worse when I met him in person. Within the first five minutes of meeting them at the bar where they worked, he excused himself, walked outside and busted some guy’s lip. Apparently this guy had ruined a “moment” between Karla and her new BF. Next thing I know there’s a guy with a blood soaked shirt in the bar, five cop cars out front and Karla and BF nowhere to be found. I was not happy.

Half an hour later, she shows back up. I demand to leave immeadiately so we can go some place to talk. I try to reason with her, it doesn’t work. I try to explain why I’m worried, she doesn’t understand. The night ends with her dropping me to talk things over with him. This irritates me even more since I had driven into town for only a few days and wanted to hang out with her a little more.

She ended up moving in with this guy and they both lose their jobs. He becomes a day laborer. Karla temporarily baby sits for one of her new who also lost her job at the bar until she can afford an actual baby sitter. Of course this turns into a permanent thing. The BF is using Karla’s car to get to work, leaving her at home with the friend’s baby. Even though she didn’t say anything, I could tell she was not too happy about her new domestic life style. Everytime I saw her after that she had a beer in her hand and was watching the kid. When I needed her to help me try on my wedding dress for my mother, I almost had to corner her and drag her out with me. For a moment she was actually getting back in to everything. Her excitement was back. But that didn’t last for very long.

The last time I saw her was in early August. It was around 1 in the afternoon, she was stuck without a car again watching the kid with a beer in her hand. When I sat next to her she reeked of beer. I’m not much of a drinker, but I know you don’t smell like that after a beer or two. It takes about five or six. I was so repulsed by the whole scene that I excused myself to go home.

I’ve talked to her a few times after that. She said that she thought that BF was going to break it off and how she thinks he’s possibly bipolar, but she knows he would never physically harm her. I begged her to go talk to my mother about all of this. My father was bipolar, she could enlighten her on how unpredictable an unmedicated person could be. Karla refused the offer, even though she knows about my past. The few phone calls after that normally consisted of her telling me she was stuck at home watching the kid and drinking a beer. Eventually the phone calls just stopped.

One of our mutual friends tried calling her a few times but never got a hold of her. She told me the first time she got the answering machine which the message had been changed from “Hi, this is Karla and BF” to just being Karla. The second time she tried it was an automated recording saying that the number was disconnected.

I’m basically coming to terms with the fact that I’ve lost my best friend. I thought I wasn’t worried about the situation, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I don’t want to call her since I don’t know how either of us will react. If she acts like nothing ever happened I’ll probably blow up and go off on her. Plus the thought has crossed my mind many times that she would have tried to get a hold of me some how over the past month if she wanted to.

Anybody have any advice, suggestions or a simple slap telling me to wake up and get over it?

Do you have any way of contacting a member of her family to express your concern? Do you know the person that she was babysitting for?

You can’t save her from herself or from the consequences of her choices. But someone should look into whether she is alive or not.

If she is the one who brought up the subject of abuse, that is especially unnerving.

I have her parents’ number, but I’m almost afraid to call it.

I don’t know whether her parents are oblivious, trying to ignore everything, or are just plain tired of dealing with her. I don’t want to be the one to tell them about any of it.

I’ve kept my distance from her new friends. I live over 200 miles away and they’re not the type of people I prefer to associate with. I don’t even know her BF’s last name.

I think she brought up the subject of abuse because I saw what he did to that guy at the bar. She knows how much I am against violence of any type. She probably said it trying to reassure me rather than to reassure herself. Unfortunately I’ve seen what an unmedicated bipolar person can do. Nothing would make me feel easy about any of it.