Problems with Facebook/social media

[Finding Courage]

I have worked on more boundaries for a long time with my uBPD mom.  One area that is still a challenge is on facebook.  Since my mom will virtually stalk me on there, I have mostly blocked from what she can see.  But she will repeatedly comment, share, and like everything that she can see.  Often these comments are embarrassing or inappropriate.  (she still very much wishes we were totally enmeshed like she insisted on when I was a child). 

So now she has taken to posting the shareable photos that say things like, "Share if your daughter makes life worth living" or "I gave my children life, but they are my reason for living."  Yuck.  I am sure she is doing this to try and suck me in.  She really wants me to "like" it, comment on it, and generally gush over her.  I ignore these posts but it still bothers me.  I can't defriend her completely without a LOT of drama.

How do other people handle social media with their BPD relatives? 

[nomom4me]

This is a tough topic.  Simple answer; avoid facebook.  I'm not a great example of that, I grew up in tech and have my entire network of co-workers and friends on facebook, I do not have my uBPD mom on facebook and have no intention of adding her, I had to delete/block an enmeshed sibling who was sharing everything I posted with my mom (and even resorted to using a younger relatives account), there were also some incidents where my siblings were posting to deliver messages for my mother.  At this point I have all family on the "restricted" setting so they cannot post on my wall and only see universal/public posts.  I have not explained my logic to most extended family but my mother has been so vocal about "needing" to reach me online that I think most people can do the math.  I'd like to open my wall up to certain family, but I don't want to put people in the middle.

My advice to you is to restrict what posts your mom sees and pretend to be too busy for facebook. Try to "wean" her off with infrequent updates and change the topic when it comes up. In my experience, addressing the behavior only makes it worse (especially with online stuff that they can do in the wee hours, when they are bored, etc).  When I made a "no email" boundary with my mom she ramped up to sending bi-weekly emails and only calling to see if I read them, according to my phone records she was averaging 10 emails to 1 phone call.  I guess this was an "extinction burst" (one that lasted over a year with over 100 messages).  After it became clear that she would not stop by request, her account was blocked - I cannot suggest this method.  I am an honest person and generally think that honesty is the best policy, but when dealing with my mom I find that distraction and outright trickery work best.  I wish my mother would focus on what is important, I honestly don't even want to speak to/ see her because she works online contact into every conversation (3 years after I had her email blocked) and she has badmouthed me to extended family for making a simple boundary directly related to my professional life.

[GeekyGirl]

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook (for those of you who have been here a while, you've probably heard/read my views on FB more than a few times). It's a great tool for reconnecting with long-lost friends and classmates, but it's also a potential for drama, even outside of family stuff.

Here's my advice: hide your mother's updates if you find them triggering. You can set your FB news feed to only feature "important" posts, or you can tell it to not show any of your mother's updates. It's good that you're already using the privacy settings to only show your mother what you're comfortable sharing.

As a general rule of thumb, I'm pretty selective with what I share on FB--but not just because of my family. I am FB friends with my boss, my co-workers, and a few other people that I don't want to be super-personal with. There are other avenues (private FB groups, messages) to share very private things. I only post things on my wall or in public that I'd be ok with my boss, my dad, and my yoga teacher seeing. Everything else is left to messages, texts and face-to-face conversation.

[Finallyblooming]

My S15 accidentally accepted a friend request from his Dgm, it caused a lot of problems because she views him as her favorite, she's only allowed to see him physically with supervision, so this is her one outlet she saw to get involved in his life, which is fine, doubles as documentation if she gets inappropriate. Unfortunately, it gave her caused to come tattling to me about things he was doing and insinuate I was an uninvolved parent LOL (Which, I have all passwords and monitor his FB and other things online). It came to a point where he told his friends that he was going to turn it into a stagnant page and we created a new page using his middle name (his first name is very unusual, so she could find it) and his paternal grandmothers maiden name. He just transferred friends over and defriended them from his original page. His friends appeared to be very understanding and turns out, some of his friends were experiencing issues with family members with the same problems, so it opened them all up for supporting each other. He still includes his Dgm and will talk to her on facebook, but he'll tell her he's been busy if he forgets to check in on that page once in awhile, she seems to accept that ok. It seemed to be a win win. I don't know if this would be feasible for you, but it has worked out well for them (S15 & Dgm).

[Finallyblooming]

Geekygirl

I'm with you 100%, I'm pretty sure facebook will be the decline of civilization as we know it LOL

[isshebpd]

I have a confession: I put my uBPDmom on Facebook. This was before I realized she was BPD and my main reason was for her to see pictures of her grandchildren (my niece and nephew). She has a grand total of nine Facebook friends, three of which are her children. When I showed her the "People you may know" list, it turned out to be mostly her old enemies.

So uBPDmom has socially isolated herself enough that she is deemed mostly harmless on Facebook.

She freaked out at uNPDbro a couple of times. Once when he insulted our enDad (called him a "bonehead" in a delusion rant, even though enDad is not on Facebook and it was about a decision he made about his own property. uBPDmom wasn't really so much upset about the unfair insult than about "airing family dirty laundry in public"... . whatever that meant. The other time uNPDbro posted some silly atheistic comments that uBPDmom interpreted as anti-Christian. uNPDbro learned some valuable lessons, I guess, and no longer posts anything that upsets uBPDmom.

The only flak I got was when my Aunt (uBPDmom's sister) started liking and commenting on my page. uBPDmom, who blacklisted her sister many years ago, was somehow threatened by that and ranted to me about how my Aunt was evil and not to be trusted.

I agree with what GeekyGirl and others are saying. My Facebook content is available for anyone to see and is totally non-controversial and non-offensive. I mainly use it to get in touch with long lost friends and relatives, play Battle Tetris, and "like" everything my sister posts about her family (if I miss a picture, my sister will point it out to me).

Facebook is a narcissist's playground. My uNPDbro has about a thousand "friends", but only knows a few dozen of them personally :P

[Finallyblooming]

LOL I love that, narcissist's playground.

Anytime you associate with someone your pwBPD despises or is in NC, you'll find that you're supposed to be NC with that offensive party as well. If you're friendly with the blacklisted person, you then become a traitor.

That's generally I think what makes it hard to leave or go NC with a pwBPD, if there's still people you care about in the family, but they're under the pwBPD rule, you're not just cutting off them, you're cutting off those they still have hidden in the FOG. 

[nomom4me]

Now I have a facebook question;

The online stalking issues with my mom are in the past, and I'm trying to get over my hyper-vigilance about family members posting on her behalf.  I've made a list of family and am about to remove them from "restricted" access (so they will be able to post on my wall).  Most of my posts are to groups and are specific to career-related stuff, so they still won't see many updates or pictures.

My question is, do I say anything about removing the restricted status?  I have a nagging feeling that I need to explain myself to extended family because my mother has said so many nasty things.  I'd also like to voice my concern and state that there have been very serious privacy breeches in the past.  I feel like I resolved these issues to the best of my ability by blocking my mom and other family who did get involved in online stalking.  I always say that I "hope communication between my mom and I improves" when her crazy stories come back to me but I wonder if I look like the crazy one when I am on guard for future attacks.

[ucmeicu2]

i basically just gave up on FB.  it caused me a lot of pain, there is a lot of drama, and it ate up a lot of my time (time that i can now spend here at bpdfamily  ).

[Finallyblooming]

Ucmeicu2,

I hear you, all it took for me is seeing my daughters deal with FB to know that drama is paramount. They've since inactivated their accounts because of it.

[enough abuse]

it sure is tough, because my sister UBPD whom I am NC with shares several friends with me on facebook even though she and I are not friends. I have completely stopped posting any posts or comments on statuses of people whom I know she is friends with.  It is my choice because I do not want her to know anything about my life or my kids.  On the other hand I would like to keep the connection with other family and firends. 

It's tought... . good luck

[isshebpd]

LOL I love that, narcissist's playground.

Anytime you associate with someone your pwBPD despises or is in NC, you'll find that you're supposed to be NC with that offensive party as well. If you're friendly with the blacklisted person, you then become a traitor.

Yeah, a lot of people are starting to see Facebook that way. It brings out the worst in disordered people.

My uBPDmom is going to have to get used to all three of her children having our Aunt (and her family) as Facebook friends. Only enDad is in this particular FOG

[twoday]

My uBPD-DIL has used FB to hurt me in the past so I ended FB - sometimes its better to not know.  She also uses it to post any negative feelings with any family member including my son.  Not long ago my niece saw a very negative post my uBPD-DIL had made about me and my niece (who is like a daughter) came to my defense.  My niece had seen and ignored several negative posts about me and my son over the years and she had had it.  I have been painted black for the last four months and now our entire family is included.  My uBPD-DIL asked what I had said to my niece - did my niece know all the terrible things I had done to my uBPD-DIL. My uBPD-DIL was upset because she felt our problems were private. I said I had never revealed anything to my niece and that she had only learned what she did from my uBPD-DIL's FB page with hundreds of strangers.

If FB ended tomorrow it wouldn't be too soon for me.