Creating tech boundaries

[XL]

Would anyone like to discuss the tech boundaries they have in place?

-I have 2 facebook accounts. I am slightly older and don't believe employers, parents and extended family belong in peer groups.

-There is concerning chatter among the extended family. Things I post are relayed by telephone and come back to my mom. I find out she's seen pictures other family took of me that I didn't approve, etc. Once a joke was repeated from a cousin to aunt, back to mom, and I was the target of a rage attack about it, where she was trying to dictate what I tell my adult cousins by private message. She doesn't even have her own account, and has found a way to stalk/rage at me.

-She mentions stalking old exes online. I don't approve of any stalking behavior.

-She tries to stalk my dad's family through a sibling's account, then makes fun of their appearances. She demanded access of all my pictures of my dad's family from me, even though she's bitterly estranged from those people and has no business owning any pictures of them. I should have set a boundary, but I got uncomfortable and just changed the subject. I screwed that up.

-On the few occasions I've shown her pics of close family friends' weddings or new babies, she makes fun of them.

-Extended family is also chaotic and several fights have broken out in the last year over politics and religion with real-life estrangement happening. She loves talking about these fights in real life.

- She makes fun of people's harmless activities, like "Your stupid aunt just plays games online all day, I hear." Now one aunt she doesn't like "is an alcoholic" because she's been tattled on for checking in at a margarita bar once a week. 

- There have been instances of the whole family getting massively over-involved in school aged children's medical and relationship drama, which I find concerning and an intrusion on the children's privacy.

- There is one cousin in a media position, and every move cousin makes in personal life tends to be heavily scrutinized and talked about in real life. Phone calls have been made to tattle on cousin's nightclubbing, etc. Cousin's gay relationship was outed without permission, then dragged into the middle of a gay rights argument (cousin wasn't even invited into the conversation). Several family members with personality disorders have been formally banned by officials from cousin's public events following violent rage fits. Other family fawns over cousin in an inappropriate way. This terrifies me, as I am worried cousin is under increasing pressure, and I am also trying to get into more public performing arts.

The other hurtful thing is that people who've been estranged from me since childhood because of our family's behavior keep showing up as suggested friends. I don't even know these people as adults, but it's weird to be reminded of all the people who went away.

I really wish this was still just for classmates and people I go clubbing with.

I keep the dummy account up for appearances, and blocked the disordered family's emails. I am getting nervous, as family members from her generation keep begging her to make an account.   The joke account I use most often is fine for strangers, but it's going to quickly become obvious who owns it. This pisses me off because I'm in entertainment and use it for calendar events and networking with old classmates.

I also find myself deleting all activity off my wall periodically in case anyone is trying to use it against me. I don't let pictures of myself be tagged at public events either, and I don't let event photographers take my picture anymore. I realize this is beyond paranoid, and I'm mad I have to deal with this. Humorously, a wave of cousins has figured out what I'm up to and has started copying me. One admitted they're protecting themselves from their parents as well. You have never seen a family with so many fake birthdays, joke names and cartoon pictures.

[GeekyGirl]

Everyone has a different level of comfort when it comes to FB settings. It sounds like you've set up some good boundaries already, until FB changes its privacy settings again.  (Seriously--it annoys me that I have to go back and change my settings every time they update the privacy policy)

If you don't approve of your mother's behavior, the only thing I can suggest is that you not let her use your account to see family pictures or where your aunts are checking in. She's choosing to do some things that you don't approve of, like stalking exes, and although it's understandable that you don't approve of that behavior, it's her choice to do so. You can either choose to not help her or not be around when she does it, but you can't stop her from doing it.

How much (if anything) to share on FB is a really personal decision. I have one account that I use for everyone, including friends, co-workers, my boss, and my family. I do have a special group on there that has very limited access (mainly acquaintances that I don't want to share much with), and they can only see my basic information and profile picture. Typically I'll keep the posts light and only share important or neutral things--I steer clear of any politics or touchy subjects.

Do you feel like the boundaries you have in place and the privacy settings you've set are strong enough? If not, what are you comfortable with others knowing?

[XL]

I share almost nothing with her. The problem is siblings / functional cousins share stuff, like pictures they've taken and tagged of me, and then it starts circulating through the disordered older generation by telephone.

A long time ago I had an 'absolutely no family whatsoever' policy, and then I started regretting missed connections with my cousins, and thought I could get away with just adding them. So I made a bogus page. Then a bunch of semi-functional aunts & uncles found me, then all hell broke loose.

I guess I'm mad at the real-life reaction to other people's dumb stuff too. It makes me paranoid that I'm hearing by telephone that my aunt's co-worker tagged her at a bar, or that everyone knows my cousin is gay because of a nightclub picture taken by their classmate.

The attempt at stalking my dad's family, and asking for my help doing so threw me off guard. "Your sibling showed me pictures you put online of dad's family, you'll have to send them to me, no one sent me those" asked 5 times with increased anger/desperation. I should have set a firm boundary, but I didn't. I didn't know how to handle that, and it didn't strike me as creepy until it was already escalating.

[XL]

The few pics I've shown her of wedding announcements and friend's babies were saved on my computer. She doesn't know any of my screen names, and her email is blocked regardless. If the family gets their way, and talks her into creating an account, she's going to realize how quickly she can't find me, and I don't want to even deal with that.

[nomom4me]

I don't think I could keep up with two facebook accounts.  I've used facebook for years (was an early user) and recently my mom decided we should "re-connect" on facebook (in the middle of a 4-year long battle over using my email for personal matters).  I agree that my work associates, who are 30 years younger than my mother have nothing in common and have no need to network.  My mom's generation is using it like a social scrapbook, the concept of business networking is foreign to my mother but she pushes and pushes anyway.  I agree that chain reactions happen with the disordered, I recently blocked a relative for triangulation and another relative blocked me in retaliation.  I gave them no reaction other than "great, we agree - we won't use facebook for family matters".

What is it with the disordered and pictures?  My mother obsesses over photos and demands proof of every trip I take, and if the pictures are not to her liking she is MEAN, I stopped showing her pictures years ago because it's no fun to hear your mother tell you how terrible you look in a photo.  I am very careful with pictures on facebook, because of the lack of context - my mom is always looking for another boulder to hold over my head and I'm sure if she sees me enjoying myself with someone else it will proof that I do spend time with other people, because other people are not gathering stones to throw at me.  I honestly feel I should be read my miranda rights before any interaction with my mother.  I don't have any public information on the internet other than the bare bones - this hurts me professionally, but my sanity is more important.

It took me awhile to get my facebook settings really locked-in, but there is a setting in lists called "restricted" and the people in that group only see public and universal changes, they can still send personal messages but I'm pretty sure they can't post on the wall, the restricted group is automatically blocked on all posts. For awhile I double-checked every post, I use topic-specific lists too and try not to change profile and background too often.  I just don't want text-based contact with the more difficult members of my family, at all - I'm offline for long periods of time, anyone who actually has meaningful contact with me knows this but my mother just sees boundaries as trampolines.  She is oblivious to how disrespectful her tone is in email and pretends that she (a retired person) has all the same stresses as someone who works at a desk 40 hours a week (something she has never done).  I had to build my network from scratch, I never had the benefit of family members supporting everything I post on facebook, now my mom wants that support from me.  It's not going to happen, I've had email filters for years - before I realized she is disordered I started re-directing her emails because she was disruptive during a job search, she has no respect for my skills (ironically I have over 10 years experience with social networking platforms).

[XL]

What is it with the disordered and pictures?  My mother obsesses over photos and demands proof of every trip I take, and if the pictures are not to her liking she is MEAN, I stopped showing her pictures years ago because it's no fun to hear your mother tell you how terrible you look in a photo. 

----

I I had to build my network from scratch, I never had the benefit of family members supporting everything I post on facebook, now my mom wants that support from me.  It's not going to happen, I've had email filters for years - before I realized she is disordered I started re-directing her emails because she was disruptive

That was the thing about the request to have my dad's pic (they were in a totally blank album printing service account, lest they got tangled in with pic of the partner). A normal person would be like "I want to see your pics, oh cool" and walk away. She was combing over each one looking for signs of failure, like "I haven't seen these people so long, they look so fat and elderly and gross, give me copies." Those two statements together made it obvious she didn't want the pics out of love or interest, but out of derision.

I have publicly denied knowledge of the partner to protect their interests. We are single on one account, and not even friends on the dummy account, and pictures of us together get untagged immediately.

I'm a little hurt I have to publicly disavow my real personality to protect myself.

[Clearmind]

-I have 2 facebook accounts. I am slightly older and don't believe employers, parents and extended family belong in peer groups.

Wise move regardless if a family member has BPD.

I keep the dummy account up for appearances, and blocked the disordered family's emails. I am getting nervous, as family members from her generation keep begging her to make an account.   The joke account I use most often is fine for strangers, but it's going to quickly become obvious who owns it. This pisses me off because I'm in entertainment and use it for calendar events and networking with old classmates.

If this is your business then a firm boundary needs to be established that the account is for business.

I also find myself deleting all activity off my wall periodically in case anyone is trying to use it against me. I don't let pictures of myself be tagged at public events either, and I don't let event photographers take my picture anymore. I realize this is beyond paranoid, and I'm mad I have to deal with this. Humorously, a wave of cousins has figured out what I'm up to and has started copying me. One admitted they're protecting themselves from their parents as well. You have never seen a family with so many fake birthdays, joke names and cartoon pictures.

XL, in general – you are entitled to privacy. It’s likely your space was impeded upon when you were a child. I know mine was. Your angst around this maybe a throw back from those days.

You are an adult with adult privileges and you get to dictate who has access and who doesn’t.

If you are afraid of the fall out if you keep it private and don’t “friend” people then deal with that then.

Be kind to you – permit yourself privacy simply because you want it. Don’t enter into the drama that is FB.

[Babysteps]

Both my uBPDmom and my father on facebook can be quite stressful. They do not stalk me-but I make sure to not post anything (typically) that they might react badly to.

It is still stressful to deal with my mom, in particular, on facebook because it's embarassing to have all my other fb friends witness her immaturity. My mom likes to comment on my pictures sometimes. One profile picture I had for Halloween was a zombie-like picture my friend took of me years ago. She goes ahead and comments "No no no no no, and no. I don't like this picture. Put up the pretty one." May I point out, this was two weeks before Halloween... .   I had several friends who saw it comment on saying how spookely  beautiful I looked. It makes me paranoid on what some of my non-close friends may think.

My mom likes to comment on my status, often trying to embarrass me or show authority, often too. It has gotten to a point where I either block her from my individual status posts. This is less of a big deal now, since I rarely update my status anyways. Typically, I delete her comments when she does get immature. It still worries me on what other people who have me on facebook might think. I know I shouldn't care, but still. I'd prefer to not have the whole college campus and everyone from my high school knowing that my mom is mentally ill... .  

Another part that bothers me is how she uses my siblings and I to boost her fake-life on facebook. She is mother of the year on facebook, always posting statuses on how she misses her children so much, even though she tells me how worthless I am when I am at home. She is a complete attention-whore, but she uses us to get compliments. It's embarrassing and kinda disgusts me.

I love how she has enough time to post on my wall picture-quotes that talks about mother-daughter bondage, yet she doesn't have enough time to message my sister or me quickly before throwing out my triplet sister's bed without asking? All this fake mother mask she pulls on facebook irritates me because I know it is complete BS, but people actually believe it.

You know my second grade teacher pasted away this year from cancer? My mom goes ahead and tells me by posting the online newspaper notice about it on my profile. On the post, she said "Sorry you had to hear this way, but... .   " I didn't even knew if that was truly my 2nd grade teacher since I haven't seen her since 2nd grade and I had no idea she had cancer to begin with. No private fb explaing it. No text message. No phone call. All she did was post it on my profile. I called her to clarify and she properly told me then. I made a nice grieving RIP status on facebook about it. Without asking me, my mom copies and pastes it into the guest book and signs my name. She never told me either until I asked her about it. She thought I wouldn't "mind". May I point out, I wanted to say a lot more than that typo-filled status I posted while having a mixture of drowsiness and shock. This teacher meant a lot to me. I wrote a letter when I was younger saying thank you to this teacher, and I guess not only did she kept it all these years, but someone even read it at her funeral (which I couldn't attend because I'm away at college). My mom took something that was important for my own grieving and controlled it. Blah.

Sorry I started ranting a bit. Anyways, these are mostly little things that bother me. If you are truly getting stalked/harassed by your BPD relative, I'd recommend try fooling around with your privacy settings on facebook. It's rather impressive what you can block, as long as you figure out how to. You can assign it so certain people (hand chosen) cannot see your status updates/ect. You can make settings where you get an alert that asks if you want to be tagged in a post/picture when your friend tries it (and you can approve/reject it). You can even make it so only certain people can see what posts you are tagged in. If anyone needs help, I'm more than welcome to make a tutorial on how to do so.

[nomom4me]

I have publicly denied knowledge of the partner to protect their interests. We are single on one account, and not even friends on the dummy account, and pictures of us together get untagged immediately.

I'm a little hurt I have to publicly disavow my real personality to protect myself.

For years I lived in another state and didn't introduce my family to anyone I dated, never talked about it because she was unbearable after a break up - I literally spent more time managing her feelings about a breakup than I did with my own.  Now, years later I regret introducing my current boyfriend, he has a high-profile job that my mother loves to brag about (she actually tells people that all she knows about me is where my boyfriend works).  I suspect her interest in facebook has more to do with him than me, she'd like to have a high profile "friend" to brag about. I worry she will scare him away.

I wish I would have said he's a plumber, suddenly after she met my boyfriend she was demanding our address so she could send gifts (she hasn't given me a sincere gift in years) but my boyfriend was put off by her from the first meeting (before I realized she is likely disordered).  He's asked not to be involved in family holidays and requested I not share our address with her.