BPD Mom on Facebook

[Depression = 72% of members]

My mother is not computer savvy, but she has been fascinated by Facebook for years. Some of her friends are on FB and communicate with their kids and grandkids, so it would make sense that she wants to do that too. I know she has gotten other people who have "friended" me and the kids to get on there and let her look at our pages.

I don't post personal info on FB or drama, but I do post pictures of the family and communicate with some family and friends on there. My kids have pages, but they haven't posted in ages on there. Once the "old people" got on Facebook, the kids' generation all left to something else ( Instagram).

So Mom apparently got someone to make her a FB page, a profile pic, and send me and the kids friend requests. Now, her friends are all her FB friends too. It would be pretty embarrassing to her to not have us accept her friend requests. She wants to appear normal. I don't mind that he friends think she is "normal" .

I'm wavering between accepting her requests and using some privacy blocks so she doesn't see every post, but it would be difficult to filter through the years of pictures and postings on there. There is nothing for her really to see- it would be unwise to post things on Facebook that are personal, but the idea of her snooping through all of them feels creepy and invasive.

What would she see? Some snapshots of things that I like to do or like, such as music videos, family pics, interesting articles.  She doesn't know me as a person. Pictures of her grandchildren that I didn't send her- I did send her some but not all of them- which will likely fuel her accusations that I am "keeping her from them". She's seen many of them since her FOO downloads pictures I post and sends them to her since she's gone to them telling them I don't send her any.

But really- I don't want to. I just want to keep my own life private from her, and I don't want to friend her any more than I would friend a stranger. This is how she does things- the camel's nose under the tent at the boundary and then, serially breaks down more of them. It seems harmless to "friend" her when I friend other acquaintances who are not very close to me, but I know that this is how she starts to break boundaries.

[Notwendy]

My mother is not computer savvy, but she has been fascinated by Facebook for years. Some of her friends are on FB and communicate with their kids and grandkids, so it would make sense that she wants to do that too. I know she has gotten other people who have "friended" me and the kids to get on there and let her look at our pages.

I don't post personal info on FB or drama, but I do post pictures of the family and communicate with some family and friends on there. My kids have pages, but they haven't posted in ages on there. Once the "old people" got on Facebook, the kids' generation all left to something else ( Instagram).

So Mom apparently got someone to make her a FB page, a profile pic, and send me and the kids friend requests. Now, her friends are all her FB friends too. It would be pretty embarrassing to her to not have us accept her friend requests. She wants to appear normal. I don't mind that he friends think she is "normal" .

I'm wavering between accepting her requests and using some privacy blocks so she doesn't see every post, but it would be difficult to filter through the years of pictures and postings on there. There is nothing for her really to see- it would be unwise to post things on Facebook that are personal, but the idea of her snooping through all of them feels creepy and invasive.

What would she see? Some snapshots of things that I like to do or like, such as music videos, family pics, interesting articles.  She doesn't know me as a person. Pictures of her grandchildren that I didn't send her- I did send her some but not all of them- which will likely fuel her accusations that I am "keeping her from them". She's seen many of them since her FOO downloads pictures I post and sends them to her since she's gone to them telling them I don't send her any.

But really- I don't want to. I just want to keep my own life private from her, and I don't want to friend her any more than I would friend a stranger. This is how she does things- the camel's nose under the tent at the boundary and then, serially breaks down more of them. It seems harmless to "friend" her when I friend other acquaintances who are not very close to me, but I know that this is how she starts to break boundaries.

[Enabler]

FB seems to be a popular topic at the moment on the boards. Here's another one.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=327392.0;topicseen

Despite the second comment re passwords I actually agree with the sentiments re FB. I loath the thing TBH as it just shows such a false destorted picture of the world being all black or all white. Yes I loath the people who take a photo of every dinner and check in when they're at the supermarket but I suppose at least that's a little more real than the best and worst kind.

I couldn't think of anything worse than having my mother on my FB friends list, she just doesn't need to see me half-cut on a pub crawl with mates or pictures my friends found in the loft of me when I was 15 smoking a massive joint. It's not so much what I post, which is virtually nothing, it's the things I'm tagged in. I really wish it was possible to stop people being able to tag you... .maybe there is.

I'd decline the request, no one is going to check from her FOO... .are they?

[Notwendy]

I agree that FB can be a mess. I rarely post, but the cumulative years of postings would likely entertain my mother for hours and fuel the imagination. The attraction for me was connecting with friends and family who live far away from me and so I am in some groups- school alumni for instance- where I can see pictures of my friends and their families and also some discussion groups where we share information. My kids' schools have parent groups. It's a convenient way to keep up with that, despite the possible pitfalls.

Yes, her FOO will notice and it will fuel their image of me being a mean daughter or whatever my mother has told them about me. I'm not as concerned about them.

It is FOG basically. In a normal circumstance, I would accept the request, just like I have from family on my father's side. It seems like a nice thing to do. Many of my other posts are about the struggle between my own feelings about how I would want to treat my elderly mother, and reality- that she expects this kind of relationship ( like her friends have ) but is cruel, abusive, and exploits my own kind nature. She breaks boundaries in increments.

I was raised to enable her. It's a tough tendency to change.

[CollectedChaos]

I can relate to this!  Facebook seems to be a big drama trigger with my uBPD mom.  

Many years ago, my mom figured out Facebook and we were friends on there (before I went NC).  I don't post much and basically only have it to stay connected to out of state family, but she was constantly posting on anything I said or did, and posting comments/photos to my wall.  Eventually I made her mad one day and she unfriended me, and we went back and forth from being friends and not being friends a couple of times before she stepped it up and blocked me.  I went NC shortly after that so it has been quiet since.  She has unblocked me a couple of times (which I only know because I can suddenly see her love bombing all over my brother's page, and then it disappears, haha!), but luckily she hasn't tried sending me a request... .yet.  I wouldn't accept even if she did.

However, last year my grandma (mom's mom, and my mom lives with her) suddenly had a page of her own and requested to be my friend.  My grandma is in her late 80's with dementia, so I know she did not make this page on her own and my mom likely did it for her in an attempt to see family posts that she can no longer see.  I went back and forth with it - should I add her but keep certain things private just to be nice (in case my grandma is seeing any of it), or ignore it.  While my FOO knows that I don't have a good relationship (or a relationship at all) with my mom, I worried about them seeing it as cruel that I am not friends with my grandma either.  I ultimately declined it, and I'm glad that I did.  I see my "grandma" posting to my cousin's walls and I can tell by the typing that it's my mom.  It's just creepy.

If it were me, I'd decline the request.  No sense in inviting drama into your life when you can help it

[Enabler]

Working on the assumption you decline:

What would you say to her if she asks why you declined?

What you say to her FOO if they asked why you declined?

[Notwendy]

I didn't even think about her posting on my wall  

I think the bottom line is I don't want to deal with the potential drama from my FB wall feeding her imagination. I have an elderly relative on my father's side who doesn't know how to use FB and she sometimes posts oddly but it isn't drama and it isn't malicious- it's clear she is posting herself and doesn't have a grasp of the technology. She also doesn't have any motive beyond staying on contact with family.

I have been in this situation before where the situation has tugged at my heart because I think it is the right thing to do, and I have given into this only to meet the next step and the next step. My mother knows that she can't crash my boundaries by busting down the wall. She disassembles them brick, by brick, by brick. Although we are not NC, I have kept my life private from her for many years. She likes to snoop. This would be a brick in that boundary.

So, to Enabler- what would I say to her? I have found that it has to be a straight up NO- no explanation and then rinse and repeat as she says angry and mean things to me and asks several times and argues her point. I have been in this place before and it doesn't get easier. I've been trained by my parents to not say no to her. However, I do this now. She isn't used to it, and the extinction burst is still there but I know to hold firm.

Her FOO is basically a lost cause with me. She has painted me black to them so many times. I will say no, as I don't have much investment in trying to change their point of view about me.  I have wished many times I could have a relationship with them, but she is their priority.

[zachira]

Most of us who have a BPD mom keep hoping she will change and show us the love and respect we deserve. If my mom requested to be my friend on Facebook, I think I would initially be hoping that mom was doing it out of her love and genuine interest in knowing me as a person. Then I would come to my senses and realize that mom has always been jealous of me, does not see me as a separate person from her, and would use Facebook as a means to paint me black. I don't think you are asking us whether or not you should allow your mom to be a friend on Facebook. I think you are sharing with us the hope that your mom could have a genuine interest in being a loving caring mother which is a wish that will never disappear since our mother is the first person we know in life, and establishes our core identity in loving relationships.
Can you write a letter to your mom, and send it to us instead, and say all the things you would like to tell your mom about her Facebook request? Keep us posted and let us know how you are doing.

[etown]

Hi,

I feel this so hard. I've had a lot of real trouble with my BPD mom on social media. It began innocuously, but over time she started friending some really weird people and getting into bizarre situations. She began posting these long, emotional statements about her mental health and my childhood on her page which wouldn't have been a big deal, except she would tag me in them as a way to get attention from me and others.

This access to me made it impossible to keep reasonable boundaries and meant I had to face unexpected triggers on a regular basis. She would also take photos of me from my page and post them on her page without my permission, then have long conversations about them with her friends. I kept trying to talk to her about respecting my control over my own image. It was a struggle every time. When I did manage to get her to understand my boundaries, she would respect them for a week or two before going back to the same behaviour. Then, when my family had a serious crisis last year, her posts really crossed a line. Ultimately, I had to unfriend her and then block her all together for my own sanity. It precipitated a huge fight and we haven't really spoken since.

So my advice is, do not accept the friend request. The argument you have about it now will be far less painful than the one you'll have a year or two down the road when she does something truly heinous. The public nature of social media is just too tempting for someone who has no boundaries and you deserve to keep your space.

Be well.

[Learning2Thrive]

After too many issues (disordered family members and flying monkeys), I developed a very strict NO FAMILY for friends on facebook policy, even my own kids who still live in my home or nearby. Before I went NC and blocked uNPDmother she went friend shopping from my friends list.

I communicated to all of my family or friends of family that my Facebook is for bicycle friends only and that family should communicate with me directly via phone, text, email, snail mail or in person. Then I promptly unfriended and blocked. The usual suspects threw a fit, the rest were very understanding.

  Good luck with whatever you decide.

L2T

[GaGrl]

Hey, it's not my family that has PCs (it's DH'sex), but I have a no immediate reliability on FB... .don't have adult children, teen grandchild, or mom on FB.

[Turkish]

I blocked my ex when she was still living with me,  then I deactivated my old profile when I had to report her teen brother for likely abusing our daughter.

I started a new profile, which is >95% an online photo album for my kids. My ex sent me a fired request 3 years ago when she knew (I am FB friends with only one of her siblings not the other four). I don't delete it because it might be useful someday... .

I know it isn't the same dynamic as yours, but it's still a boundary: I don't want to see her crap,  even if a lot of it is benign; I know some of it wouldn't be.  I don't want to drag mark Zuckerberg into being triangulated. The poor guy has enough on his plate. 

From all that you've said,  it doesn't sound like a good idea.  It provides a target, publicly.

[TheAllBadOne]

Hey just wanted to add my 2 cents in.

I work in social media and I blocked my uBPD mom 6 months ago. I wasn't her friend but I'd commented on my sisters post and she commented back with something really nasty. We'd been no contact for 2.5 years at that point. Want to hear the funniest thing? She called me the wrong name. Ie: Lily but called me Lucy (neither of those names are my name) and it was just odd. So I blocked her.

Last night I blocked my uBPD sister. It's a boundary thing for me. I'm so glad I did because last night she shared a passive aggressive article directed at me. Long story but she's a single mother of 1, I'm a married mother of 2. My husband travels for work and I've often said I feel like a single parent. She shared an article saying "I'm sick of people saying having a husband who travels is the same as being a singe parent" and THEN my mum piped in and said "I agree and I bet you're sick of hearing that!".

SO frustrating! I had friends who contacted me and wanted to comment in my defence but I steered them away from it. No point trying to defend yourself against BPDs.

So in my opinion, either restricting what they can see or blocking them altogether is the only way you can guarantee your boundaries remain in place.

[Notwendy]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I didn't think of all the ways someone could violate personal boundaries on FB like sharing my pictures and commenting on posts, farming my friends list- all of which BPD mom could do. I realize that putting anything on social media is not immune to privacy violations, and we need to use judgment about postings. BPD mom doesn't have good judgment when it comes to other people, and so, I will not accept the request. My kids have no problem ignoring it too.

Zachira mentioned something interesting about hoping she will change. I don't have hope for that. However, having gone through the experience of my father passing away, I do realize that the emotional pull of wanting a relationship with a parent doesn't go away entirely, unless it becomes truly impossible. My attachment to my father was much stronger than it was with my mother, and I could not give up hope he would change until it wasn't possible.

I don't know if there are words to describe how complex the parent-child bond is. Even some adopted children seem driven to seek out their genetic parents. For those of us who have gone NC- that is an emotional struggle even if the parent is an emotional or physical danger to them. We'd have an easier time avoiding that person if they were not the parent.

What I do know about my mother is that, she is incapable of true empathy. Her BPD is so severe that she is only focused inward, on her own inner emotional pain but believes the cause and solution is something or someone outside of her. Sadly for her, none of them work. It could be the next vacation, or a new friend, or a new purchase. For her, a relationship with me and my children serve to "normalize" her. It feels uncomfortable to deny her that, since, this is what we were raised to do as children  and she is not used to having her wished denied. I decided long ago that she doesn't get to use the kids for her own purposes, and so, no Facebook relationship.