She still has online access to me

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hi everyone,

I don't know where else to go with this... .

My BPDx and I have very active social media accounts, and I have a blog that I've had for approximately 7 years. I have done a pretty good job of not looking at her stuff in the last three months (for awhile we were playing the block/unblock game pretty frequently) which has honestly been my biggest challenge since the break-up.

However, in the middle of March, a new person "subscribed" to my blog and I'm fairly certain (like 99.9% certain) it is her and/or her new girlfriend. I haven't done anything with this for a couple of reasons. In order to prevent her from seeing it, I would have to make the whole thing private and reduce the blog's audience to only people whom I approve; the issue with this is I have a lot of people who don't have blogs of their own who read my stuff so I would be eliminating them (mostly friends and family) from it.

I can obviously block their "fake blog" account from having any new entry I make being emailed directly to them, but I cannot block them from just going to the website whenever they feel like it. Plus, I get tripped up at the idea that I would be acknowledging their existence by doing that (even though obviously, I am acknowledging their existence by writing this post). Amusingly, they did email me a couple of times and (see if this sounds familiar) I just keep screaming in my head, "What do you want from me?"

Anyway, it is such a silly problem and yet, some days, it feels so invasive to know she/they took these steps. (They also occasionally request to follow my Twitter and then quickly retract the request. I've blocked them but am fairly certain they have also created fake Twitter accounts in the last three months.)

So. Short of blowing everything up and deleting all of my accounts, any ideas? Is it better to remove her fake blog from my followers or pretend like I don't even notice her? Is showing ANY attention to her worse than being assertive when I know I cannot ever 100% eliminate her access to me?

I apologize for it being 2018 and having internet questions. They make me feel so stupid.

And if this has already been discussed, pointing me to the thread would be great. Thanks. Hope you're all having a peaceful day.

kfry2679

[kfry2679]

Hi everyone,

I don't know where else to go with this... .

My BPDx and I have very active social media accounts, and I have a blog that I've had for approximately 7 years. I have done a pretty good job of not looking at her stuff in the last three months (for awhile we were playing the block/unblock game pretty frequently) which has honestly been my biggest challenge since the break-up.

However, in the middle of March, a new person "subscribed" to my blog and I'm fairly certain (like 99.9% certain) it is her and/or her new girlfriend. I haven't done anything with this for a couple of reasons. In order to prevent her from seeing it, I would have to make the whole thing private and reduce the blog's audience to only people whom I approve; the issue with this is I have a lot of people who don't have blogs of their own who read my stuff so I would be eliminating them (mostly friends and family) from it.

I can obviously block their "fake blog" account from having any new entry I make being emailed directly to them, but I cannot block them from just going to the website whenever they feel like it. Plus, I get tripped up at the idea that I would be acknowledging their existence by doing that (even though obviously, I am acknowledging their existence by writing this post). Amusingly, they did email me a couple of times and (see if this sounds familiar) I just keep screaming in my head, "What do you want from me?"

Anyway, it is such a silly problem and yet, some days, it feels so invasive to know she/they took these steps. (They also occasionally request to follow my Twitter and then quickly retract the request. I've blocked them but am fairly certain they have also created fake Twitter accounts in the last three months.)

So. Short of blowing everything up and deleting all of my accounts, any ideas? Is it better to remove her fake blog from my followers or pretend like I don't even notice her? Is showing ANY attention to her worse than being assertive when I know I cannot ever 100% eliminate her access to me?

I apologize for it being 2018 and having internet questions. They make me feel so stupid.

And if this has already been discussed, pointing me to the thread would be great. Thanks. Hope you're all having a peaceful day.

kfry2679

[once removed]

nah, i dont think its silly. youre what, about six months out, right? id have been pretty anxious if my ex was following me.

what to do about it is a pretty personal decision. my own advice would be to ignore what message it would send or not send, whatever you do.

if it were me, i would just carry on with your blog.

[Mutt]

Hi kfry2679,

I agree with once removed if she’s creeping you I’d ignore italthough I can understand the discomfort of having her join your blog. It’s not easy, the bigger picture is you don’t cripple your blog because of her if she sees that she has this hold on you it would be giving her attention as you say. Carry on and see what happens if anything happens as then reassess.

[caughtnreleased]

Hi and thanks for posting this. I have had similar questions as you. I honestly don't know what kind of advice to give you because access through online stuff is a tough one. I was connected online with my BPDex for a while and I thought he was becoming nice again when he started liking a lot of my posts so I ended up responding to a message he sent me. When I did though he lashed out at me, told me I was nothing and that he was deleting my contact from his phone and he was sorry he messaged me and... .all that. I was so hurt - again - that I blocked him on all social media because his activity had given me false hope that somehow we could be civil to eachother. I recently discovered that he blocked me on instagram and I couldn't understand why because I had never followed him there or even liked any of his pictures and his account is public so blocking didn't make sense and then I realized that blocking me was the one way he could still keep track of me through instagram because if I changed the username he would have no way of tracking me down unless I was blocked. So I keep going back and forth as to whether I should make my instagram profile private or keep it public so that he can still creep me... .and I just don'T know. I know he is triggered when he loses track of me so I figure I may as well just let him check my instagram feed? What's the big deal after all? Even though it does feel like he still has "access" and that in a way no contact is impossible because we may still be communicating subliminally. I think the trick is for me to never check what he is up to which I have become really good at doing. Still I don't know how to handle this. And I too feel ridiculous but social media has such a creep factor to it. It's so unhealthy.

[kfry2679]

I was so hurt - again - that I blocked him on all social media because his activity had given me false hope that somehow we could be civil to eachother.

I understand this so so much. I held on to the idea that she and I could be civil to each other for an amazing amount of time and even now, some days, I think, "Maybe she'll get there."

She will never get there.

So I keep going back and forth as to whether I should make my instagram profile private or keep it public so that he can still creep me... .and I just don'T know. I know he is triggered when he loses track of me so I figure I may as well just let him check my instagram feed? What's the big deal after all?

I deactivated my Instagram account for awhile, came back to it, made it private, then made it public, then made it private, then made it public again. She shows up SOMEWHERE (online) the second she can't keep track of me in some way so I'd rather she just creep on me without me knowing but not overtly invade my stuff when I block her entirely.

... .communicating subliminally. I think the trick is for me to never check what he is up to which I have become really good at doing. Still I don't know how to handle this. And I too feel ridiculous but social media has such a creep factor to it. It's so unhealthy.

The subliminal communication thing is also a problem. I have to absolutely never check her stuff because everything has the potential to feel like an intentional shot at me (i.e. wearing a shirt I gave her in a profile pic or tweeting a quote we said to each other all the time, etc. etc.). And I am working an obnoxious amount at writing whatever I want to without taking her into consideration, but it feels virtually impossible because I know she will see it. (True story: I had her blocked on everything immediately following our break-up and a couple weeks later changed my Facebook profile pic. Within THREE HOURS, she sent an email lambasting me for it since I was with someone else and attached a screenshot someone had texted her of my profile pic. I felt like she had an army monitoring me.)

Anyway, please talk to me about this as much as you'd like. It drives me crazy sometimes. Just know I understand. And maybe we can remind each other to have a little self-compassion instead of feeling ridiculous.   

[caughtnreleased]

I deactivated my Instagram account for awhile, came back to it, made it private, then made it public, then made it private, then made it public again.

Wow this really resonates! I have done the same with both facebook and instagram. I recently desactivated facebook though and am feeling good about that. When I first blocked him on facebook I saw him a month later walking on my street. He saw me and pretty much speed walked away... .I have also come to realize that blocking him on my social media is me "rejecting" him... .which triggers him. How can I just let all this go without having to do the active "rejection" thing?

The subliminal communication thing is also a problem. I have to absolutely never check her stuff because everything has the potential to feel like an intentional shot at me (i.e. wearing a shirt I gave her in a profile pic or tweeting a quote we said to each other all the time, etc. etc.).

Yes. and yes! Sometimes I even see certain things reflected in his feed that I've put in my online dating profiles... .like quotes from the same poet (which he and I never discussed together in person), a hobby that I've mentioned which is very specific and so he photographs himself doing that hobby with the replacement (which we also never discussed in person).  Does this mean he's also looking me up on dating apps? Or am I just going nuts? The one thing that is not me being nuts is that the woman he replaced me with has many superficial commonalities to me: the same name, and a parent from the same middle of nowhere region in a european country. He and I have even discussed these similarities (when we were speaking) because I pointed out how strange it was. His response was that we are both completely different and have nothing in common with eachother... .which is fine... .but still it creeps me out. He recently tagged himself visiting her family over there... .I feel completely invaded by someone who it feels has his social-media fingers down my pants but in person rejects me at every opportunity he has. "You and I are nothing and will never be anything." "sorry didn't mean to text you I must've been drunk. It was a mistake. I'm deleting your contact from my phone I'll never ever do it again." I had to block him because the constant back and forth is atrocious.

 And I am working an obnoxious amount at writing whatever I want to without taking her into consideration, but it feels virtually impossible because I know she will see it.

I too am a writer so I am so glad that we are discussing this. I don't have a blog though... .but as people who put pieces of ourselves out there, knowing that I have this incredibly invasive yet also hostile social media stalker is a hard thing to shake. I don't know for sure that he will read it... .I know nothing for sure. Honestly I too am finding this really difficult. They're like shadows hovering over us.