Virtual stalking and legal help

[here2learn2]

Hi all,

I'm not sure how to start a new conversation, and I hope this is in the right place. I've logged on here over the years, but with caution for all the reasons others do.  My fwBPD ex (we split in April after 16 years) is virtually stalking me. She has a phD in computer science and I'm nearly certain she's gotten into all my data. I've changed my Apple ID but last night 5GB of data transferred somewhere off my phone (maxing out my plan) with no initiation from me.  I have spent hours working with Apple and now Verizon, but the fraud dept. sent me down a route that hung up on me yesterday. I'll pick it up again today.  Bottom line is that I am thinking I need an attorney who specializes in these issues and knows BPD. If my ex has 5GB of data, she has plenty of information to harm my relationships with family, friends, and colleagues.  And she wants to make a case that I slandered her by talking to "a vast number" of friends about her.  Of course, I've selected a pretty narrow group and sought support carefully during the last 9 months.  I recall there used to be a list of lawyer referrals on here, but I can't seem to find it.  Any other advice on this also appreciated.  I am a community person with a broad circle and I simply hate that I have to retract my life so much to protect myself--and even then I suspect it won't work that well.  This sends me to the edge of panic attacks, I walk myself back, life fine for a while, repeat.   Thanks all.  I'm so glad I don't live with her any more.

[maxen]

hi here2learn. i'm really sorry for what you're experiencing. you'll get support here!

slander has elements; in short,

oral defamation, in which someone tells one or more persons an untruth about another which untruth will harm the reputation of the person defamed

(www.legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/slander). bringing a lawsuit can be (is) a hassle for the plaintiff too, not just the defendant. how much do you think you need to worry about it?

about the data i'm no expert, but although unjust i wonder if you'll have to close your account entirely and open a new one, even buy a new phone. have you told your friends/family about the data? this is a delicate thing to handle, you have to judge how much to say, but if you fear that she will sully you, you might want to get ahead of it and tell people important to you what has happened.

[eyvindr]

Hi here2learn2,

I'm sorry to hear you're dealing with this. It really can be tough to move on, First, let me say that I don't know too many details about your situation -- only that your r-ship ended last April, so you're 9 mos out, and apparently you either suspect that your ex struggles with BPD, or she was dx'd as such, and you somehow landed on the boards here.

Here's my nutshell background (some might even say nutbar background!): I've known my ex now for almost 4 years. We met, fell in love, and had a great r-ship for about 6 mos -- with what I felt like were just the standard sprinkling of occasional communication issues that tend to come up in all romantic r-ships. Turned out these issues, which I initially thought were bumps in the r-ship road were in reality the whole road -- and the emotional roller coaster eventually took its toll on my ability to maintain any level of stability or peace w/in the r-ship. The first time we split up, she initiated it -- by having a police officer call me and tell me that she didn't want any more contact with me. I took the warning at face value, and left her alone -- which resulted in her launching a non-stop onslaught of abusive and threatening emails, txt msgs and voicemails, all of which I know now were intended to draw me back in. Or, rather, more accurately -- it was just the way she dealt with emotional issues. According to her, she was just angry at me, and needed me to talk to her... .even though she was the one who called the police, and had me warned to stay away from her. What she didn't factor into that little act was that I would behave like a rational adult and heed the warning.

But, I'm rambling -- sorry. After about two months, we did end up texting each other, then speaking on the phone, deciding to meet to talk, and we got back together. Like so many of the stories shared by the other members here -- things were great for a few weeks, then the r-ship became bogged down in the same issues that we'd started to see before. The second time, I broke it off. She immediately began a new tirade, taking to social media and email to attempt to "tell her story" to everyone, fully believing, I think, that she could secure the support of my friends and family, who would then intervene on her behalf and talk some sense into me. It was awful, but really more annoying than actually damaging. As far as I can tell, her smear campaign only impacted the opinions of a couple of acquaintances who didn't really know either one of us very well.

Amazingly, this experience still didn't prevent me from agreeing to reconcile one more time with her -- and again, nothing changed. The r-ship limped along, and really began to feel kind of like playing handball alone; where symbolically, the wall was the weight of her BPD's dysfunction, a continuous source of dysregulated emotions, the ball represented her insecurities, unreasonable demands and unwarranted accusations, and my hand represented my personal boundaries. In keeping with the metaphor, the whole r-ship felt more like a hard workout than a romance -- I couldn't take it. So I ended it again -- and was again met with a stream of vitriol, with more than a sprinkling of legal threats.

Thing is, it all sounds scary -- but unless you have something to hide, you aren't really in any danger. Your ex is free to say anything, unfortunately -- that's the price we pay for living in a free society. Unless her words and or actions cause any kind of direct damage to you, it's all just noise -- and she's entitled to her opinion. That said, if she is dong more than just making noise -- there are laws against slander and libel, and our friends wBPD may not like to accept it, but they apply to them no less than to the rest of us.

If you know that she's messing with you, your first step is to contact your local LE and let them know. You can talk to a police officer, and they can contact her and advise to to cut the crap -- essentially, warn her that if she doesn't cease and desist, she will be charged with telecommunications harassment. If you take this route, you do need to know that you're not interested in any further contact with her, though -- because if you ask the police to get involved, and then begin communicating with her again, it pretty much undermines your request for the warning.

Hope this helps. Take care.

[livednlearned]

Hi here2learn2,

My ex is also very proficient in computer stuff. I hired a forensic IT expert to look at my son's smartphone to see if ex had somehow hacked into it. There is relatively cheap ($150 or so) surveillance software out there that you can easily download onto a phone. It's intended for parents who want to monitor their kids safety, but it's pretty common for this software to be used to track cheating spouses, etc. The really freaky part about it is that it can record conversations up to 20 feet away (approx) without the phone being turned on.    

If the person who installed the software knows what he/she is doing, it's possible to bury the file. So IT experts look for large packets of data in the code to determine whether this is happening. Most of the programs send data once a day, usually around midnight, directly to a remote computer. The IT expert told me the battery will run down quickly with this software installed, and the phone may seem unusually hot.

If you own your phone and pay for services, and someone installs this software, it's a felony where I live. Even if my ex had done this to my son's phone, it would be a felony because I owned the phone and paid for the plan.

In my case, the IT expert found a packet of data but it was relatively small. I didn't pursue it for a variety of reasons.

You have to make sure that a forensic IT expert looks at the phone because they have to handle the procedure in particular ways so that the data is not compromised in any way. And that person will be called in to testify if you press charges.

I think most of these software programs the person needs actual possession of the phone in order to install. But if your ex is very proficient, then maybe there are other ways to do it, like sending emails or texts that you open on your phone.

I will say one thing -- it's very easy to become gripped with paranoia. Around the time I was concerned about my son's phone, I got paranoid that my ex had manipulated my info in the school database because I ended up in an eternal loop of hell trying to figure out why I was not enrolled, what the holds were. Four different departments had to get involved to try and figure out what had happened. Now that I'm out of the worst part of my divorce, I can see now that I blamed this on my ex without any proof whatsoever. Other people in my department have had problems too, and our system is notorious for wreaking havoc. I let my imagination and fears run wild and lost a lot of sleep over nothing.

Try to keep calm. Get another phone and don't receive any messages from her on it so you can have a zone of privacy to lessen the paranoia. It's an awful feeling, and easy to fan those flames without any proof. If you feel certain that something is going on, and you have not tampered with the phone so that the IT people can do what they do, then look for someone in your area who does this type of work. Call a bunch of family law firms to ask if they recommend someone and do that until you start to hear the same couple of names. It cost me $500 to have someone look at my phone.

[eyvindr]

Yep -- this --

I will say one thing -- it's very easy to become gripped with paranoia. Around the time I was concerned about my son's phone, I got paranoid that my ex had manipulated my info in the school database because I ended up in an eternal loop of hell trying to figure out why I was not enrolled... .Now that I'm out of the worst part of my divorce, I can see now that I blamed this on my ex without any proof whatsoever. Other people in my department have had problems too, and our system is notorious for wreaking havoc. I let my imagination and fears run wild and lost a lot of sleep over nothing.

Very easy to do. I think it's a good example of how deep the F.O.G. can get for those of us in r-ships with pwBPD. Even though some of us leave those r-ships, well aware of our reasons for doing so -- we can't change our normal wiring, which wants to believe the things people we care about tell us. Even after we recognize the role that the disorder plays in the r-ship dynamic, we still I think on some level respond as if we're dealing with people who are behaving rationally. When they aren't.

Also, I think some of our exes do this stuff purely to keep us on edge -- they can be spiteful, and what could be more amusing than imagining that they have their evil ex biting their nails with anxiety and cowering in the face of false accusations. Don't give them any power. Live your life.

If you're truly concerned about your phone, why not just do a factory reset? That'll get rid of anything that might be on there that isn't standard issue software. Hang in there.

[ForeverDad]

Thing is, it all sounds scary -- but unless you have something to hide, you aren't really in any danger. Your ex is free to say anything, unfortunately -- that's the price we pay for living in a free society. Unless her words and or actions cause any kind of direct damage to you, it's all just noise -- and she's entitled to her opinion. That said, if she is dong more than just making noise -- there are laws against slander and libel, and our friends wBPD may not like to accept it, but they apply to them no less than to the rest of us.

My ex was making false allegations to every agency she could find alleging she suspected I was a child abuser or whatever.  I spoke to my lawyer about it and he told me slander (verbal) and libel (written) cases were very hard to prove.  He said I'd have an immensely hard time proving intent.  In your case, she'd have to prove intent plus falsehood or perhaps also damage and that's not likely.

I wonder if this is shades of a control and retaliation issue, "I can do this to you and you can't stop me... ."

[here2learn2]

Thanks so much to all of you for the experience and advice. I am very glad that it's difficult to prove slander and libel--and I'm quite certain I didn't make anything up about her or try to destroy her at all. To the contrary, like so many here, I covered up for her more than I should have in order to minimize the pain and triggering.     I have found a smart phone forensics company and will contact them.  My goal is to self protect as much as possible going forward.  These posts have been incredibly helpful and resonant--all the threats, control, desperation, false stories, etc.  I continue to be stunned at the simple fact that people are wired this way and will destroy their own and others' lives for no apparent reason.  This whole thing--we were together 16 years and we've been apart 9 months--has made me realize how dangerous people can be.  The irony is that I (like others here) grew up in a lot of danger and didn't see it.  The coping mechanism to wipe it away worked as a kid--and nearly killed me as an adult.  But nearly is the operative word -- onward and upward... .