BPDFamily.com

For those of you curious about Internet stalking, and just how sick these people are, check out the provided link. Apparently stalking is a way to keep an attachment without any risk (SICK!).

https://m.reddit.com/r/BPD/comments/3m9pal/obsessive_internet_stalking/

I'm not gonna lie I stalked mine online but she had the baby.

What? I don't understand.

She ran away with our baby and when into silence. I had zero clue where they were so I had to "stalk" to find them.

And I have custody. Even the judge said she would stalk someone too if they ran away with her kid. They are all different.

I'm sorry to hear that. That's horrible.

I've read before that it's a way to keep the attachment and feel connected to us.  I actually find it rather sad.

It's tragic! Why not just pick up the phone and call like a normal person?

I've asked the same question a million times and still I don't have the answer.  Perhaps it's their fear of rejection.  Or it could possibly be the fact there are no phones on planet loon lol

Every BPD is different, mine is more NPD she does the silence to punish. I mean she said so herself. Now granted had we not had a baby I wouldn't care what she did.

Mine did the silent treatment too after she discarded me thru an email! She picked up the phone once to me right after she sent the email. After that she never picked it up again. I sent her email after email asking her why she just did to me what she basically did to me again as a teen. After a while she said to me since my silence is not getting thru to you... .Blah blah. Also after my discard I had been getting Fake FB messages . Just saying HI Dear. This started on New Years Eve. I didn't notice it bc the message went to my spam  box. Then the last one I got was a Person named Gift Love and their profile pic said Heart Injured.  Well I got it as soon as the message was sent. I then replied hi so and so. Well since then I never got another fake FB message. Now I get hang ups on my cell or blocked numbers. It's is nuts! I mean if you want to talk to me say something! Stop these Bull $hit games! My ex also has blocked me on FB since October of last year and to my knowledge I'm still blocked. But here is something I find curious. Our mutual friend told me that last year my ex had a snow pic as her FB background . I love snow and my ex knows this. Now our mutual friend told me her new background pic is an artist painting. Well I'm an artist and do a lot of paintings and sculptures. My ex never put this kind of stuff up before in the years that I've been friends with her on FB. I'm not saying it's anything ... .But I find it strange!

Agree 100%

cyber peeking is extremely, and increasingly common. im guilty of having done it myself and id assert a high percentage of members here are. it being a way of maintaining attachment without risk, id say is kind of a given.

more importantly, as much as we want answers, "these people" are not proxies for our exes and as such cant provide reliable insight into their heads.

Occasional "peeking" out of curiosity is much different than routine monitoring due to compulsion.

and thats your situation, sweet tooth. my point isnt that that isnt happening to you, but that trying to infer what it means from anonymous strangers on the internet, or seeing it through the lens of BPD (members frequently do what you are describing, among other methods) arent going to get you especially far.

why do you think your ex is routinely/compulsively monitoring you?

I get the peeking.  I'm sure we've all looked out of curiosity.  What makes it different for me is that they go further than just looking.  I've received another notification today that someone has tried logging into one of my online accounts.  It's the third I have received in recent months.  Now that's stalking!

I have no idea. Control? To care about me from a distance? To see if I'm with someone else? I really don't know.

Yes, I have had so many of these little coincidences! Such as, she tells everyone I beat her and she had to escape. Well if I'm such a bad man why has her friends not deleted me yet on Facebook? So strange because I would delete some guy I didn't know if I thought he beat my friend? But hey, they can watch me. I enjoy it

There are lots of Facebook spammers and fake accounts out there with improbable names. My spam box is full of messages like 'Hi dear' (sometimes they use my name), ':)o you have time for friendship?', and so on. Most of the time they look like creepy guys trying to hit on random women, sometimes they're possibly part of a financial scam ('I have work for you if you are interested', and sometimes they could even be spambots - weird grammar, repetitive phrasing. Profile pictures of roses and broken hearts seem to be common, as do romantic-sounding names. I don't think you can assume that your BPD ex must have a hand in this when spam is a big thing across Facebook.

To be realistic about the game-playing, I think that if you're having conversations with mutual friends about your ex's Facebook profile photos, you are participating in the game. A topic like that wouldn't come up in everyday chat unless you were willing to discuss it and consider what, if anything, it means. If you want to go no contact, that also means not keeping up with what she's doing through friends and not giving a second thought to what she puts on Facebook. I know it's hard. Sometimes I am very tempted to fish for updates from mutual acquaintances, but I know that's not going to help me in the long run, so instead I try to look at why I'm tempted, why I still want to know what's going on with him.

First of all do I believe this is my ex with these 2 fake FB messages ? Yes! Why do I believe it well let's see I Never Got anything like this before ... .Her! I have been on FB since 2007 and I only got these fake FB messages after her discard of me! I'm an ex Cop so yes it is too much of s coincedence! Just like with my phone . I have not gotten multiple calls with hang ups and blocked numbers since... .Her! Hmm let me see another coincedence maybe?  And this started around the same time as my FB messages. And as far as my exs FB page goes I can really care less what she does. Our mutual friend took liberty and told me all this . I don't sit there and stLk her since I am still blocked on FB. Thank you! A ton of ppl here have gotten fake FB messages that never gotten them before. Hmm so you want to say that there all spam? You don't know my ex? Do you? This is something she is very capable of doing.

I am one of those people, Confused108. 

Yes, there are spammers out there, but they are obvious to spot.  Creepy men and usually from Nigeria.  Mine are not like that at all.  Whilst I won't go into detail of the fakes I get, there is a pattern to how each and every one of them is set up.

There is no co-incidence in my case :)

"Routine monitoring" is a great phrase to describe what I have experienced.  Though I was blocked on Facebook -- and probably e-mail and his phone, who knows -- he certainly showed a great interest in my whereabouts until very recently.  How often he checks on me varies a bit depending on how things are going in his life.  Usually 2-3x per day he would check to see what my online activity was in our group of mutual friends.  That website logs the most recent visitors, so I could easily see how often he checked in, no guessing required.  In the last week or two his interest in my online activities has greatly declined and I hope this means that he is moving on to other fascinations.  It may mean he has a replacement, or I might have unintentionally done something to convince him that I am still stalking him.  It may also indicate that enough of his female friends know me and know what he did to require him to move on to a new narcissistic space.

I also received fake messages, friend requests, and hang-up phone calls to a degree I absolutely never have before.  I can't conclusively say that these are my ex, but I'm suspicious.

I'm very active on Facebook. I've gotten the fake profile requests and messages, but they're very rare. I probably get one or the other once every 2-3 months. If you're getting then more often than that then it's probably not just a coincidence.

I agree! Yes you do have those crazy spammers out there. Just like we all have gotten spam emails as well.  But like I mentioned I have been on FB for years. Never have I ever gotten anything like this before since my ex came back and discarded me. 2 fake FB messages and not from men is her! After the last one I said hi so and so and I have never gotten another fake message again!  So yes they Do send fake Facebook messages and they aren't all Spam! For a member to say that it's not my ex sending me messages is just unreal! You don't know me... You don't know my ex... .And they certainly were not in my relationship! So unless your my ex ... .Or a friend of hers who knows this was not her I would keep my comments to myself!

And yes Busygal it most likely is your ex sending you fake messages.

According to a study, 88 percent of lovers follow their exes around on Facebook after break up.

Not merely did the vast majority stalk, but 70 percent admitted to using a mutual friend's profile or even logging in as that mutual friend to do their stalking.

Is that not painful enough for you? Well, 74 percent crept around the profile of their ex's new partner or someone they feared might be their ex's new partner.

Please don't think of these people as victims of love. For 31 percent admitted to posting pictures to try and make their exes jealous -- on the presumably logical assumption that their ex would be stalking them too.

www.cnet.com/news/88-percent-stalk-their-exes-on-facebook/ (http://www.cnet.com/news/88-percent-stalk-their-exes-on-facebook/)

Despite blocking her on all social media, I believe my ex is finding a way to maintain tabs on me on FB. My friends on there that have her as friend like to joke that EVERY time I change my profile pic, she changes her's either the same day or the day after. When I got new glasses, 2 days later, she had new glasses. Most recently I added a black & white pic of myself, yesterday I learned, the day after I did that, guess who added a B&W pic of themselves? So yeah, she is definitely stalking the crap out of me online.

It's kind of really creepy. Almost like she's still trying to mirror me. I have a feeling that it bugs the crap out of her that I've actually started to realize that I'm happier being away from her negativity and not feeling sorry for myself anymore and it's been showing in my pics.

Something similar is happening to me too.  I believe the recent increase in "stalking" is due to the fact I have really moved on with my life.  I've moved in another direction - am happy, healthy and living life to the max.  I suspect it may come down to them feeling like they are losing control, or losing the attachment, which they must always maintain even if we have been discarded.

folks, at what point does this become us monitoring our exes monitoring us? at what point is the pot calling the kettle black?

when we block them, but continue to monitor their online activity, analyze profile pictures, and see them as confirmation, while we advertise to them how much happier we are without them in our profile pictures, chat about it with our friends, then we come here and call them stalkers, things are getting pretty convoluted, no?

it was about a month or two after my breakup that i realized my ex was getting into the email attached to my facebook and reading messages sent to me. it took a long time for me to change my password, because the truth is i was very much getting something out of knowing she was looking, and my wishful thinking that she was still attached, was in fact, keeping me very much attached. one of the emotionally hardest parts of my recovery was changing my password; when i no longer knew for myself that she was checking, accepted that things were over, and began to detach, i went into a pretty deep depression.

i get it. its confusing behavior, a conflicting message of leave me alone while i watch you (which is a message some of us are sending as well). so what do we do about it? if we dont like it, we can block, not peek ourselves, remove our social media presence, etc. or we can accept that our exes are monitoring us, and what that means to us if anything.

no one on reddit or elsewhere can tell us what is in our exes heads. over generalizing about our exes as a group, trying to determine their motivations as a group, will not end the confusion or get anyone anywhere. neither will clinging to our exes online activity or projecting what might be in their heads.

Yes! As I stated before my ex had put a pic up of snow in her FB page and she does not like snow lol but she knows I do. And she now has put up an art painting and I'm an artist and I usually put up my work as my background. So yup they mirror and if I'm right with my thinking I feel my ex has made up a fake FB account to see what I'm doing. 

Yes. Exactly this. Her ex-husband spiraled into drugs following the collapse of their marriage, he stalked her, he fell for her games. I honestly think she expected me to react in similar fashion. She underestimated me. She didn't realize that I was intelligent enough to use this as a learning experience. To use it as a clean slate to make me a better person and NOT fall into a pity party of substance abuse to get over it. Now that control over me is slipping through her fingers. Sure, the first few months were tough, but I've got my mojo back and it's reflected in my pictures. So, I think she maintains the attachment through mirroring me on FB. It's like the more time that passes from the break up, the better I feel, the more desperate they become to maintain the attachment and control.

Funny because that's the conclusion I came to yesterday :)

I agree with this completely. At what point is it the pot calling the kettle black?

For myself, I don't look. No good can come out of looking and by not looking I decrease the attachment. Now, when my friends bring up her "mirroring" via Facebook, it's done in a very lighthearted fashion. Joking about it helps with the detachment, but it does not compell me to look at her pages. I have no desire to, because it's self destructive.

No, I can't figure out what is in my ex's head, nor will I ever. But through educating myself about BPD, I can have a generalized theory about what's going on in her head. Especially, when I apply what I've learned into the demise of her previous relationship. It clearly makes sense, that because I'm not feeding into her drama it bugs her on a subconscious level, that I'm not reacting the way her ex-husband did.

Her actions have shown a bit of desperation to make me jealous, since I see her almost daily at work. This particular replacement was chosen because of my dislike for him. It's a desperate attempt to make me jealous, but she doesn't understand that it makes me feel embarrassed for her, not jealous. I'm not jealous of this replacement, I pity him. She's only using him for her little games, the same way she used me to make her ex-hubby jealous.

Even with crazy people, you can still apply logic, only you have to twist and warp it a bit, to match their twisted and warped thinking. But you can start to predict some of their actions because so many stories about BPD's follow a template. It comes down to control. That's about the only thing they are consistent about, control.

For me, not looking is the way to go. But I do want to understand just what happened. What will happen and how can I prevent it from happening in the future.

BusyGall,

I really don't think they ever truly want to let us go. Even if they were the ones to discard. They NEED a tether to us, in some form or fashion. I spent 4 years with mine. Even in a normal relationship, it would be hard to let go. But for them, when the relationship was based around controlling us, and we find ourselves free of that control. Their passive aggressive nature becomes very aggressive. We are almost possessions to them, not people. Even when they find a replacement, they still spend a great deal of time discussing us with their replacement. When we actively choose to detach, they become more desperate to maintain a tether, to maintain some type of control over is.

"they"

there are more than a few exceptions to the behavior you describe. my ex did not spend a great deal of time discussing her ex(es) with me, that would have pushed me away quickly. and there are plenty who never hear or see a peep from their exes ever again.

you may well be right about your exes motivations, you know her better than anyone here. lets not forget however, that our experience is limited to one (usually undiagnosed) person and that borderline personality disorder effects 17 million in the US.

thats the inherent risk of using others as a proxy for our exes, or our exes as a proxy for someone elses.

As far as I know, I am painted the blackest black. 

So why is my ex showing up at an event where he MUST know I will be?  Same time, same place.  I DO NOT want to see him.  Why?  Just when I thought his cyber stalking had ended . . .

I have come to expect this sort of thing, but still, it's really irritating.

That is an interesting question. Did he approach you?

No.  The event is in June.  But he's signed up to go, apparently knowing I will be there.

So what are you going to do? What kind of an event?

It's a city festival.  I am going with friends.  He is going with other friends.  Both of our groups are meeting there at exactly the same time.

I am bringing my new body builder guy.   :)

I must admit to peeking often though I can't see anything.

Both he and his wife deactivated their accounts ( there is still a msge from his account in my in box claiming to be from his wife) and a msge request from her a month before from her own which I never accepted.

His message when I click it shows ' page not available'... .deactivated then.

I know he has another account, totally private, no pictures or friends showing, but his phone number links me directly to it and I could msge if I wanted to ( I don't) he obviously doesn't realise I know this.

I have a public business page on mine which every couple of weeks since I ended it, has had two he views at the same time, always when I know he would have normally contacted me.

I don't know if that new account is actually new, or if he had it before in secret.

It does mean though that although I can't see him, he can still look at mine which is visible but private.

I've gone nuts wondering if he does or not but he does, or at least did have stalking tendencies.

Is it likely to be him?

I have zero social media. Its a trigger because that's how I found out I was being cheated on.

Regardless of this fact, i will continue to have zero social media until I am 100% detached. NO GOOD COMES FROM THIS. Why would you shoot yourself in the foot with a shotgun right before your 5KM fun run?

I, too, wonder if my person looks at my page through her deactivated account. She has insomnia. I can picture her reactivating it in the middle of the night when she knows I'm asleep. She also has stalking tendencies. I caught her redhanded viewing my LinkedIn page several days in a row until she wised up and changed her settings.

She used to call her ex-husband to "say goodnight to their kid" in my presence. He would either hang up or just put the phone to the kid's ear. He eventually deactivated his number without telling her, which makes me think that she harassed him.

I understand the topic and what is said and the sometimes horrible unpredictable sneaky and triggering events with an ex pwBPD. And undoubtedly it can.

The link provided as by the OP indeed gives a inside view, an inside view of which we in fact were fully aware of.

Keeping that attachment alive in the brain,  same as stories of holding on to and box old belongings of their previous r/s.

To which extend are we doing the same?

Many, many samples can be found on the board in which ‘keeping track’ of the ex is described (as ‘ex blocked me on FB!’, ‘I had a peek and now feeling awful!’, ‘ex posted a picture with replacement!’ etc. )I respectfully ask how to classify ‘us’?

I think once removed made an excellent point:


Don't you think?

BorisAcusio gave an excellent comment too.

Once removed wrote---

more importantly, as much as we want answers, "these people" are not proxies for our exes and as such cant provide reliable insight into their heads.

----The forum is for those of us who were involved with "these people"---it's not a forum for relationships in general, but specifically for those involved with pwBPD.  And in my experience, plus what I've seen on these boards and in the literature, there are very definite patterns and traits (even beyond the DSM V) that pwBPD have.  Noone is calling them proxies.  I have found very reliable insight into the mind/actions of pwBPD through this board, through reading other peoples' experiences with them, and through talking to my pwBPD/seeing their actions, which  definitely reflect the actions of other pwBPD.  And yes, pwBPD seem to do a lot more internet stalking than peoplw without the disorder

After reading this thread I've come to a conclusion:

The BPD is typically obsessed with the codependent. They cyberstalk because of this, even after discarding them.

The codependent is obsessed with the BPD's obsession, and receive validation from the cyberstalking.

BPD and codependency are attachment disorders. Neither party knows how to address the issue (obsession) in a healthy way, so the cycle continues. Two healthy individuals would discuss the situation like adults.

If we look at the diagnostic criteria for BPD, they are very broad. 'Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment', for example, could take many different shapes. So while it's accurate to say that people with BPD have abandonment fears, it is not accurate to say, "This blogger with BPD said she cheated because of her abandonment issues, so it just shows what cheaters these people are!" That's how abandonment fears manifest in some people, but not for all.

Sometimes on this forum people seem keen to match up their experiences to the tiniest detail and to generalise from very small things. They will ask questions like "What do people with BPD mean when they say X?", as though there is just one answer. I understand that, because I also find it very comforting when someone shares a story that is identical to what happened with me and my ex. The similarities are comforting. But this need for comfort and affirmation and the knowledge that we aren't alone can lead us to see similarities where they don't exist, and to make everything that happened in the relationship and after it about our exes' BPD - the BPD that the ex may not even have. Let's face it, many posters on here have diagnosed their exes on the basis of Internet information. That doesn't bother me, because whether their exes really have BPD or are subclinical or have something else entirely, anyone who comes to bpdfamily is in pain after a destructive relationship and looking for support. That need is legitimate and real even if the diagnosis isn't quite right. But it does mean that it's unwise to generalise about BPD based on a sample of one, especially if that person had no diagnosis.

Yes! This is written so well. Yes I do get validated by it.

2 years, 7 months after I blocked her, and 2 years 3 months after she moved out, I got a FB friend request from her last week. I deactivated my old account a year ago due to an unrelated matter, so she's no longer blocked. I checked her profile twice. Narc-y, silly memes. I didn't respond to her request. I've seen her and talked since (we're co-parents). She hasn't said anything, and neither have I. Other than liking the BPDF FB page, I have nothing to hide. I'm friends with one of her siblings again now. She can "stalk" me if she wants to if she asks him to look (she used to on my old profile with another sibling). I'm not going to triangulate by asking him to forbid her.

I have reached a point where I don't find the stalking validating at all.  I am glad that it has mostly stopped.  My ex posted on a message board (that he knows I can see) that he got a new job and that seems to be taking up the majority of his time now.  Just as well.  I mostly try to keep track of him so that I can avoid accidental encounters.  For example, he signed up to go to a city festival downtown that I'm going to attend.  Now I can at least stay home if I want to be sure I don't see him.