BPDFamily.com

As we all know, when trying to detach, no contact, it's hard to neglect that little thought in your head of;

1) what is he/she doing now?

And we all know, nowadays (atleast back in the 70s/80s they didnt have this issue :P), we can check them online. Linkedin, Facebook, messenger, etc. Are they online? What are they doing? But more important, how the fudge do we prevent ourselves from doing so?

Do you guys have little steps, trick in order for yourself to prevent it? Deleting is one thing, but if they have an open FB page all it needs is type their name in Google and 'et voila!' there they are! I try some sort of cognitive therapy where I try to delete the final step in my thinking process which will ultimately prevent me from actually typing her name.

It's like

1) something reminds you of your BPDer

2) you allow that to create a thought in your head

3) that thought is linked with feelings %) bad emotions, negativity %) hope, maybe he/she is better now? % ) did he/she get another

4) you allow that to create a need/drug in your head to force yourself to look up how they are doing

5) type it in google

6) ultimate destruction since you look it up again  lol

The way cognitive therapy sees an issue like this is, you have 5 steps, and thus 5 options to work on in order to prevent to do that detrimental step of checking your BPDer.

The steps I mostly work on are 1) ... i try to have as less stuff as possible in my life which reminds me of my BPDer and if it does 2)I try not to allow it to be a thought in my head. And step 4), when thoughts initiate feelings, I try to convert them to, i've been hurt and don't want to fuel that hurt and therefore it's stupid to check on how that person is doing. I fail atleast once every 48h  lol

How do  you guys do it?

My ex blocked me on Facebook within a week of dumping me.

Except I have a professional Facebook page which she Liked (when we were together).

And I noticed she hasn't Unliked it. So she can see all my updates and sometimes I have personal updates on there too. It's my blog space.

I'm not sure whether or not I should just delete her from the page or not... .  

I find it strange that she would block me from her Facebook yet is happy to still Like my page and see my updates.

I mean she can see what she's missing out on as I have some holiday and restaurant photos up there. 

But I don't know if I like her having the privilege of knowing what I am up to 

I think it is the 'thought' that matters no? The 'thought' that keeps you thinking, is she checking it? Does she care? Or maybe she thinks you don't realize she can still check on you!

harmkrakow ... .  interesting topic... |iiii

I haven't found myself doing the "checking up" thing... .  your post highlighted why this is when I thought the process through.

-If I had the desire (feeling) to check... .  I'd try to identify what the original motivating feeling was (anger, loneliness, grief, jealousy, suspicion etc)

-Then I would question with thought and reference to previous experience whether that feeling would be minimized at all by checking (or essentially... .  would checking relieve my pain and distress)

-The conclusion has been, and always will be that checking will actually cause me MORE pain long term, not less. Identifying the motives behind the original feeling... .  embracing that feeling... .  and not acting on it (acting opposite to my feelings)... .  has been the key.

-The solution that works for me is understanding that the motivating desire to "check"... .  will come and go in waves... .  very similar to the cravings for nicotine.  I can either ride them out (healthy option)... .  or give myself a temporary hit of nicotine to soothe the immediacy of my desire (unhealthy).

Thats how it works for me ... .  :)

I've been hurt enough... .  why look for more pain?

Thats exactly the path i'm looking for again. Looking at it, from a rational perspective, a perspective i've once allowed to be in my life but 'let go' due to my BPD experience.


Because you either have the hope that they didn't go on yet and that there is another chance (how foolish!  lol) of the 2 of you coming together. And you know what, when I wanted to type your reaction, I thought it was easy to mention atleast 5 reasons why to do so... and you know what, the only reason I could come up with, was the one I just mentioned   lol.

The only thing I could argue is that you are not willing to let go of the past and therefore check.

Letting go is tough... .  I've always thought that not checking is part of looking after ourselves... .  and a key stage of detaching.

Apart from maybe getting validation of our suspicious thoughts of "aha!... .  I knew there was someone else involved"  (a rather hollow and painful victory)... .  I can't see healthy reasons for cyber stalking our exs... .  

This one is a toughie for me.   :'(

I had a printed copy of article 9 - 10 beliefs that keep us stuck that I would read instead of looking.  I would identify what I was feeling and it always applied to one of these false beliefs.

Then I would get away from computer, phone, etc and go exercise, walk - something physical.

I also gave myself a break off FB for about a year.  I use it very very rarely now - I survived before FB was my theory.  My core friends also knew this, so I didn't miss out on anything important.

Ultimately, it gets easier.  It takes some time and it isn't comfortable, but it will get easier.

Peace,

SB

its good and refreshing to now it gets better i check her twitter and i always see her convos with her new guy and it just kills me people tell me she is just repeating her cycle of being with people to fill the void but to see her tell him things she use to tell me or that she didnt tell me kills me

why do you want to continue to hurt yourself?  Honestly, it is going to hurt every single time you look... .  

I have no clue i can go good for weeks then il think of her and when i see her so happy i get so sad and hurt i want to stop completly

have you read article 9 - false beliefs?

https://bpdfamily.com/bpdresources/nk_a109.htm

do any of these ring true to you?

can you stop and read this article before you look at your ex's twitter account?

I like Newton's advice very much. We have to rationalize the pain/pleasure payoff and keep reminding ourselves of it. If checking causes us pain, then we should eventually check less and less. The only issue here is if we have masochistic or addictive tendencies, in which case we have to get to the deeper root of the problem.

I had this major issue with a ex 9 years ago (my first love) and once I finally got over him (after he got married lol), I looked back at how I put myself through so much pain by pining after him for so long and wondered why I did it. I was mad at the old me for treating myself like that. After much introspection and a couple more relationships and general life experience, I'm now of the mindframe "Spend your time and energy on those who are giving you their time and energy. Forget the rest!" Basically, if you don't love me, I don't love you. Yeah, I may drag things out for a bit like I did with my last guy (who fed me crumbs for the last few months), but I do have my breaking point where I'm like "You don't want this? Forget you then. I'm going to find someone who does."

I don't know how officially we are broken up, and I do still check his FB when I miss him (it doesn't help that he's so cute lol). But I have to keep reminding myself of the times he treated me so poorly and tell myself that not only do I want/deserve better, but any time spent checking his stuff in the meantime is nonproductive and self-harming. It takes time, though.

article 9 does ring true but its more of i believe that she is fine now and never had severe BPD and all see needed was a good man she was diagnosed with PTSD and doesn't seek any therapy but she fits all the signs of BPD its scary accurate... .  its more of im still blaming myself for losing her even though i know in my heart i was good to her and i didn't nothing wrong but bring her lying cheating and abuse to the table  i stood up for myself after 3 years and she leaves me and she is happy its just asinine... but im telling my family i do this so that they can help me cope because this is wrecking me to my core

I would have to define going "NC" as not checking any social media. 

Otherwise, it's 1 way contact - you looking at the BPD. 

I have found checking on mine to be somewhat therapeutic.  He doesn't have a FB page, but never changed the password to his email when he left.  I know ... .  I know ... .  it's a horrible invasion of privacy, but having given up my home, my business, my friends, a couple hundred K$s, and my financial security I just don't care.  My point is it has helped drive home just how dysfunctional this man is.   Last week I actually got a laugh out of it.  He tends to abuse alcohol ... .  A LOT ... .  which has caused him some ED issues.  He had to quit drinking when he moved in here as I wouldn't live with a drunk.  Needless to say he wasn't here long because he uses alcohol to kill the pain.  We had a 5 year relationship, but only lived together for 3 months.  While he was here he was able to preform, but whenever he lives with someone else he drinks and can't.  I have no intention of ever pointing out the alcohol connection.  :)   Anyway, he's now ordering all kinds of male enhancement supplements.  Maybe it's awful, but I think it's funny as hell. 

Well, that certainly makes you feel better to read that.  :) ha ha ha

I wonder if I shouldn't take a peek myself.  But then again, it almost seems like if I can succeed at truly forgetting about her, I will be happier. 

Yeah ... .  There's soo much pain that any little giggle goes a long way. 

My on/off udBPDexgf and I have been blocked from each other on FB for almost 15 months.

Fact of the matter is nothing I tried would keep me from wanting to try to look at her FB or being curious about what she was doing, if she was ok, who was she with blah blah.

Now... .  finally I am in a mental/emotional state where I really don't care and don't want to know. I already know what is going on and it is not very interesting. In other words... .  she is finally not so attractive to me that I have to keep checking on her.

This did not happen until the most recent recycle when I found myself bored. At the end I had the usual bad feelings but not so bad. Finally I am losing interest.

Another issue for me were her talks of not being around after 2013 (suicide 'threats'. I know that was just her bs to try to keep me around but OTOH I am not real keen on staying attached to a person who might want to eventually off herself.

She doesn't care about me until she cares about me and then doesn't. Why should I waste my time looking at her social media etc.

My point is I don't think it is possible to really control wanting to not look at social media etc of the ex's until we don't want to look at it anymore.

Well, I did it.  Felt like I got kicked in the chest by a horse.

And I'd been doing so well getting him out of my thoughts, too.  I suppose this was inevitable.

Nothing overtly horrible, no "in a relationship status."  But he's with the same girl he told me he was going to enlist as a "companion" (I thought she was with a transgendered female to male last I heard and they were a tight couple?  And she considered herself a lesbian?).  He's posting pics of bunnies (we were "bunny" to each other... .  I still get a pang when I see them.)  And he's watching Cary Grant movies (we watched them together, both big fans of Grant, to whom he aspires.)

I feel so sick now.  I had even run with chat off, but up came the notification of someone replying to his post... .  just moused over the post and saw that he was with her. 

He waited a month, told me that he wasn't looking for someone to sleep with, or a relationship, just a "companion."  (He has a ton of friends... .  not sure what that means.) 

I don't want him back.  He'll never be well enough for me to feel safe with him.   But this hurts so, so much.   And I was the one who, finally, broke it off, not him. 

I am thinking of shooting him an email saying that for my own healing, I'm going to have to block him on FB and we shouldn't have contact unless it's necessary.  (I tried this in December and he completely blew up at me, said if I unfriended him on FB we would never have a friendship.  So I didn't, because I do want to have a friendship with him.)  We are going to be at the same convention in April, I think we'll probably end up meeting, maybe even planning on grabbing coffee. 

I hate this so much.  I loved him so very much.  If only... .  if only. 

Well FB overall is an illusion. I mean I could go on mine and post all of these great fun pics of me out with all of these hot chiks, traveling, etc. So if I was to do that (which I never would) you looking at that page would never think once that I actually break down and cry in pain daily from this recently devastating break-up. In my opinion, most ex's know you are going to look and sadly some want to be sadistic and hurtful. I very rarely see people post on FB "hey everyone, I just painted the man who loves me the most on this earth black, ran away, and have no clue who I really am!". It's all an illusion created by the page owner.  Think about it the ex before you probably was hurt looking at the page when you two were together and look what was really going on behind closed doors.

It really sounds like this can go only 2 ways.

Your torture continues ...

Your torture stops ... you block him and drop the hopes of the friendship  :'(

True. It's just a shame that so far, i've not been strong enough to delete her from facebook. I can't. I am not strong enough. Because I know if I have to delete her, I have to delete a whole lot other people as well. (her friends ... etc)

Checking FB has caused nothing but a world

Of hurt for me.  I blocked her recently and am never looking back.

I wasn't strong enough to delete my ex from FB either. Every "look" was pure pain seeing him mirroring, liking, chatting with a woman he pursued. He deactivated himself on Christmas Eve, which frankly, was a relief.

And the one thing I take for my self-inflicted pain is that I did "see" the whole BPD cycle play out with her, unbelievably... .  all thru FB! (She was my "friend" as well until I was able to at least delete her---just too much), but I "saw" all his posts to her page... .  and he must have devalued her cuz he's been gone a month now. It does confirm my similar experience at least.

But FB is also an illusion... .  he had accumulated over 200 "friends" in like, 6 months from all over the country... .  more like networking... .  but I'd like to be at that place where I don't "want" to look for him online.

Whoa!  Mine did the same thing, Amber!

She has like 200 "friends" in 2 weeks, on a brand new Facebook, but she hasn't actually talked to any of them in 12 years we were together.  They were just old "reunion" type high school people.  

It's like she is doing anything and everything to feel like she has this huge mass of people in her life, when she drove them all away.  Of course, they are all looking to hook up with her.  Just what happens with her.  Everyone does.

I did catch a picture of her and her new dude.  Most frightening thing of all?

He looks EXACTLY like me!  She is also doing some kind of caressing his face, fully engrossed, BPD look at him exactly the same way she did with me.

It's downright scary.  Broken, broken, broken.  

TheRealSully... .  isn’t it amazing how you can see thru it all? Yeah, those pics and accumulation of “friends” are what they “show”... .  Ya know, I keep reading on here that the BPD behaviors are really pretty predictable... .  so checking FB allows me to see if I could identify what I *thought* was going on with him. So far... .  sad to say... .  I have. Broken... .  indeed.

Breaks my heart. But gives me some helpful perspective as well.