BPD and Facebook

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Really a shame that I find Facebook to be one of the greatest tools used by BPD family to poke, prod, lie with image distortion.

My BPD sister defriend me and my whole family a couple weeks ago.   It was a drama and all paranoia.    I had told the story here already but to summarize I went NC.

Now she is using other family members to find reasons to post on their pages cause she knows I will see it.    I know what she is doing.  She is posting to portray a relationship with them that doesn't exist.  Maniuplative.

I am going to unfollow family members so the posts don't reach me.   Unfollow is a great option in Facebook as you don't have to defriend a person but simply don't have to watch the BS that BPD people do.    I call it the SH$T show.

Unreal.    

[funfunctional]

Really a shame that I find Facebook to be one of the greatest tools used by BPD family to poke, prod, lie with image distortion.

My BPD sister defriend me and my whole family a couple weeks ago.   It was a drama and all paranoia.    I had told the story here already but to summarize I went NC.

Now she is using other family members to find reasons to post on their pages cause she knows I will see it.    I know what she is doing.  She is posting to portray a relationship with them that doesn't exist.  Maniuplative.

I am going to unfollow family members so the posts don't reach me.   Unfollow is a great option in Facebook as you don't have to defriend a person but simply don't have to watch the BS that BPD people do.    I call it the SH$T show.

Unreal.    

[littlebirdcline]

Thankfully, my BPDm thinks Facebook is evil and would never join.  If she did, I would never be able to post most of what I do.  Not because it's about her or all that crazy, but she would constantly misinterpret and overreact to everything.  She already thinks I overshare on Facebook, and is constantly nagging about it.  I'm starting to think FB is a nightmare for everyone anyway.  Everyone is yelling their opinions about everything, getting pissed off at what others are posting, and even those of us who are relatively mentally healthy, is causes lots of us to feel inadequate and like we have to present an image of ourselves that's not true.  I'm on a FB break right now because I kept getting angry about things people posted.  I could feel my blood pressure shoot thru the roof every time. 

Anyway, sorry to go on a rant there, but I can imagine dealing with a BPD loved on FB would be even worse.  Unfollowing is a great option- hope it works!

[claudiaduffy]

Full-out blocking (not just unfriending) is a lifesaver on FB. My uBPDmil is a huge Facebook abuser but my husband and I both blocked her even before we went NC, because we didn't care to be manipulated that way. Fortunately enough, MIL is paranoid and reactive enough that when we blocked her, she blocked us as well, so we can't see things she posts on other people's walls either. I know she still does it occasionally; I've had friends contact me to ask if everything is all right, based on stuff they've seen her post on walls of people I'm friends with - but I don't have to see it. Which is really really good. =) We're just done worrying about it. Eight months of NC and us refusing to fight with her, but giving calm, honest, but minimal answers to well-meaning but misinformed people who contact us on her behalf, has really changed how effective FB can be for her. It's no longer a tool she can use to hurt us.

[Progress Not Perfection]

After having gone NC a week or so ago, I've been opening facebook with some dread because i am expecting some of what you both describe from my uBPD mom. Nothing yet but I did unfollow her preemptively, mostly because seeing her posts made me sad and isn't helping my healing.

I will say I chuckled a bit when reading this, because one of my last interactions with her before going NC went like this

her: "have you been avoiding facebook and instagram?"

me: "no, why?"

her: "because i posted three things yesterday and you didn't like all them"

Since she joined facebook a year ago, this has been a constant source of annoyance for my sister and I... .it's as though the "likes" give a tiny, tiny bit of the validation she craves, and as her children we obviously owe it to her to pay attention to and validate her every action on social media, right? 

[Levi78]

Facebook = access

I have never created a FB page. I know the people I want in my life -- I contact them via email & phone. It seems to me FB is a way to snoop on folks you would otherwise lose contact with. Or a way to project an image you carefully craft for others to judge. Seems like a collasal waste of time to me.

I realize I'm in the minority on this one.

[workinprogress]

Facebook = access

I have never created a FB page. I know the people I want in my life -- I contact them via email & phone. It seems to me FB is a way to snoop on folks you would otherwise lose contact with. Or a way to project an image you carefully craft for others to judge. Seems like a collasal waste of time to me.

I realize I'm in the minority on this one.

I'm with you.  I will never have a facebook page.  I'm in contact with people that I want to be in contact with.  Granted, it would be nice to catch up with some people from high school, but, who wants to relive high school anyway?

[P.F.Change]

People use social media in a variety of ways. The thing to remember is that each one of us has a choice how we use it also. We get to decide where our own boundaries are and how to take care of them.

Funfunctional, it is good that you found a solution for yourself. We can only control our own behaviors.

[Finding Courage]

My mom is a disaster on facebook too.  It is the perfect medium to display all of her inappropriate relationship behaviors.  I had to seriously restrict what she can see on my page because she will stalk me on there otherwise.  She comments repeatedly on any posts, likes everything, likes things I like even when she doesn't know what they are etc.  Then she gets upset when I don't comment on her things or like her stuff.  And she loves the memes that are like, "my daughter is my whole world"  Then she tries to friend distant relatives or people she doesn't even really know and gets upset when they don't respond or she gets defriended.  She runs my dad's account too to hide herself- he is nearly 80 and doesn't know how to use a computer so everything on there is my mom's doing. 

I have also limited my access to her page because i get so angry everytime she puts something up. 

[funfunctional]

Good job to those of you with NO facebook!  LOL   

Well the "dread" of what you are going to see is the feeling I don't like.   I had my husband defriend her "loser boyfriend" yesterday becuz I wanted to post a pic of he and I and some family that visited on his page and mine and I didn't want him to show BPD sister.   At this point "she got nothing" to do drama with me over and I wanted to make sure I gave her nothing.

Agree it is a choice how we use it.   Unfollow is great.   I too don't want to know what she is posting on facebook.  Even if she is bashing me AGAIN I don't want to know.   She is sick and twisted and people will have to figure that out for themselves.

Good luck and don't any of you let anyone person torture you thru facebook.  It is supposed to be FUN.     Not a tool of maniupulation.