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[Ni] Stalkerish behaviour creeping me out

SilkRoad

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Some of you may recall me posting a few threads about a girl (she's almost 20) who I befriended/mentored for about a year and a half. She seemed like she needed a friend, but I stupidly walked into a situation that was way over my head. She has pretty serious issues including an extremely unhealthy attachment style, traits which at least resemble borderline personality disorder, probably some kind of bipolar depression, etc. She's from a very dysfunctional family who don't particularly want to see she has problems and who are happy to palm her weird behaviour off on whoever seems like a soft touch (and it's not like I ever got anything resembling thanks from them.)

After putting up far too much with a lot of bizarre and disturbing behaviour, and repeated/constant boundary violations, a couple of months ago I told her rather brutally that the friendship was over. Nothing but being fairly brutal about it would work - I'd tried niceness and reasoning and courtesy to the point of going nuts, in the past. I blocked her on FB so she couldn't see my activity, etc. (FB had caused an enormous amount of problems, which I also didn't pick up on soon enough or tolerated too much. It was a perfect vehicle for her to imitate/stalk me in every detail, add a bunch of my friends - even people who I'd warned about her behaviour, unfortunately - and dump all sorts of passive aggression on me.)

We are in the same church/congregation so we still are in the same room fairly often, but that's not so much the problem. She does still try to talk to me a bit in a rather creepy/awkward way but I don't let it go beyond the smallest of small talk for very short moments, and she hasn't mostly pushed it much.

What does creep me out - and makes me feel a little sick - is that she is obviously still monitoring what I do as much as she can with what she can still see of me on the internet. Although I can't see her on FB, she is the only person I've blocked and I can tell that she's posted on a friend's FB status, or "liked" something on a friend's page, etc because it will indicate a "like" or a post, but when I try to look at it I can't see her or her name. For example, a mutual FB friend had tagged me in a post and we had an exchange. This girl had "liked" a comment on the post by the mutual friend, even though she couldn't see my own comments (and thus didn't really even know what the convo was about). I know it probably makes me sound very neurotic that I'm picking this stuff up, but when you basically have had a stalker you notice these things. It makes me feel rather sick. I think I am physically sickened by this behaviour because of the repeated boundary violations while I was trying to help her.

She also has a blog and a FB page to support it, both of which I have and which she set up very shortly after I started mine, in obvious imitation of mine (very similar titles, format, subject matter, etc. She is also unpleasantly jealous and competitive and I think really wants to get more "likes" on her page than I have...) If I look at her blog, I can see she still does things like make posts with very similar (or sometimes almost identical) titles, subject matter, etc. It is so far beyond coincidence (or even hero worship) that again, it is rather sickening.

It's not my problem any more for the most part, and she has at least been seeing a therapist (though I don't know if that's still the case). I think basically though I suffered enough damage over this unhealthy dynamic that although I've extricated myself, I feel angry and sickened when I see her "stalking" me in this way. But if I confronted her about it I suppose I'd look neurotic myself, and she obviously still craves attention from me. From the interactions I've had with her parents, they are beyond useless, and I'd rather have as little to do with them as possible.

Just curious whether anyone has comments or suggestions - even just in switching off or ignoring this kind of behaviour more than I've done so far.
 

River

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Stalkers gonna stalk. Sickening as it may feel at least you're not glancing out of the window to see her standing staring at you in the pissing rain with a maniacal grin and a machete.

Though you have formally cut ties it doesn't destroy the attachment on either side. You are still interested in her behavior and checking her blog.

Take a breath. So she is friends with people you know on facebook. How many of them accept any request from someone they have met?

In time, if you refrain from reacting and giving her attention, she'll find someone else to focus on.

She is no longer your problem.
 

SilkRoad

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Stalkers gonna stalk. Sickening as it may feel at least you're not glancing out of the window to see her standing staring at you in the pissing rain with a maniacal grin and a machete.

Though you have formally cut ties it doesn't destroy the attachment on either side. You are still interested in her behavior and checking her blog.

Take a breath. So she is friends with people you know on facebook. How many of them accept any request from someone they have met?

In time, if you refrain from reacting and giving her attention, she'll find someone else to focus on.

She is no longer your problem.

Yeah, I suppose it's only right to admit that I have a few stalkerish tendencies myself, if that wasn't already obvious :dry: :laugh:

It's true about some of those friends adding most/all the people who request them. I was just a bit :shock: about them adding her (and told them so) because if I had a request from someone who my friend had told me had seriously frightening issues, and I didn't even know them personally...I would NOT add them. It has also made it easier for her to insinuate herself into my life - or try to - in all kinds of creepy ways.

It's true that at this point she really is not my problem, and how I feel about this stuff has a lot to do with how much I let myself be exposed to it, and how I react.
 

River

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You have been violated. Bounderies, trust, expectations of how people 'should' behave. Its natural to have a lasting wound from that. To be angry and sickened at how she is still following you because even if her actions now are innocent or she were to be teleported to another galaxy she has left a hurt that will chase you for a time even if she does not.

I'm attempting to say, somewhat clumsily, that how you feel is understandable and i hope that creepy person gets help and leaves you the hell alone.
 

SilkRoad

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You have been violated. Bounderies, trust, expectations of how people 'should' behave. Its natural to have a lasting wound from that. To be angry and sickened at how she is still following you because even if her actions now are innocent or she were to be teleported to another galaxy she has left a hurt that will chase you for a time even if she does not.

I'm attempting to say, somewhat clumsily, that how you feel is understandable and i hope that creepy person gets help and leaves you the hell alone.

Not clumsy, and thanks :)

She is to be pitied in a lot of ways, because "it must be hell inside her head" certainly applies to her. But she's allowed the messed-up-ness bequeathed to her by her family to be an excuse for awful, unacceptable behaviour and for having a pretty nasty personality, which I have a lot less sympathy for. And I have little to no sympathy for her stupid parents.
 

Circle

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I totally feel your fear and anxiety over this. It's really coming through. Let me see if I can walk through what you've written.

Some of you may recall me posting a few threads about a girl (she's almost 20) who I befriended/mentored for about a year and a half. She seemed like she needed a friend, but I stupidly walked into a situation that was way over my head. She has pretty serious issues including an extremely unhealthy attachment style, traits which at least resemble borderline personality disorder, probably some kind of bipolar depression, etc. She's from a very dysfunctional family who don't particularly want to see she has problems and who are happy to palm her weird behaviour off on whoever seems like a soft touch (and it's not like I ever got anything resembling thanks from them.)

You say she has unhealthy attachments but also it feels like you are attached to her, too?

After putting up far too much with a lot of bizarre and disturbing behaviour, and repeated/constant boundary violations, a couple of months ago I told her rather brutally that the friendship was over. Nothing but being fairly brutal about it would work - I'd tried niceness and reasoning and courtesy to the point of going nuts, in the past. I blocked her on FB so she couldn't see my activity, etc. (FB had caused an enormous amount of problems, which I also didn't pick up on soon enough or tolerated too much. It was a perfect vehicle for her to imitate/stalk me in every detail, add a bunch of my friends - even people who I'd warned about her behaviour, unfortunately - and dump all sorts of passive aggression on me.)

Would it violate boundaries to be concerned with her adding other people who are also your friends? Can you share friends with someone you are not friends with or even with someone you actively dislike and mistrust?

We are in the same church/congregation so we still are in the same room fairly often, but that's not so much the problem. She does still try to talk to me a bit in a rather creepy/awkward way but I don't let it go beyond the smallest of small talk for very short moments, and she hasn't mostly pushed it much.

What does creep me out - and makes me feel a little sick - is that she is obviously still monitoring what I do as much as she can with what she can still see of me on the internet. Although I can't see her on FB, she is the only person I've blocked and I can tell that she's posted on a friend's FB status, or "liked" something on a friend's page, etc because it will indicate a "like" or a post, but when I try to look at it I can't see her or her name. For example, a mutual FB friend had tagged me in a post and we had an exchange. This girl had "liked" a comment on the post by the mutual friend, even though she couldn't see my own comments (and thus didn't really even know what the convo was about). I know it probably makes me sound very neurotic that I'm picking this stuff up, but when you basically have had a stalker you notice these things. It makes me feel rather sick. I think I am physically sickened by this behaviour because of the repeated boundary violations while I was trying to help her.

Hm. It sounds like you could be engaging in a similar behavior by obsessively checking on how she's checking on you. Do you know what I mean? I could almost see you both behaving in a similar mirror-image way. Her commenting with mutual friends and you obsessing over what she's doing or if she's doing something. Is it possible to let go?

She also has a blog and a FB page to support it, both of which I have and which she set up very shortly after I started mine, in obvious imitation of mine (very similar titles, format, subject matter, etc. She is also unpleasantly jealous and competitive and I think really wants to get more "likes" on her page than I have...) If I look at her blog, I can see she still does things like make posts with very similar (or sometimes almost identical) titles, subject matter, etc. It is so far beyond coincidence (or even hero worship) that again, it is rather sickening.

It's not my problem any more for the most part, and she has at least been seeing a therapist (though I don't know if that's still the case). I think basically though I suffered enough damage over this unhealthy dynamic that although I've extricated myself, I feel angry and sickened when I see her "stalking" me in this way. But if I confronted her about it I suppose I'd look neurotic myself, and she obviously still craves attention from me. From the interactions I've had with her parents, they are beyond useless, and I'd rather have as little to do with them as possible.

Just curious whether anyone has comments or suggestions - even just in switching off or ignoring this kind of behaviour more than I've done so far.

It doesn't sound as if you have fully extricated yourself emotionally. But, perhaps you are still traumatized or need to process your fear of contact with this person. Perhaps you could have a conversation in Church about it? Directly? You might be surprised by her viewpoint, though you may want other parties nearby for safety.

It might ease things to work on your own anxious feelings and let go of what she might be doing that you cannot control and should not control.
 

Circle

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Stalkers gonna stalk. Sickening as it may feel at least you're not glancing out of the window to see her standing staring at you in the pissing rain with a maniacal grin and a machete.

Though you have formally cut ties it doesn't destroy the attachment on either side. You are still interested in her behavior and checking her blog.

Take a breath. So she is friends with people you know on facebook. How many of them accept any request from someone they have met?

In time, if you refrain from reacting and giving her attention, she'll find someone else to focus on.

She is no longer your problem.

This is really sensible and well-said.
 
F

figsfiggyfigs

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I thought this thread was going to be about [MENTION=6164]Riva[/MENTION].
 

SilkRoad

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Would it violate boundaries to be concerned with her adding other people who are also your friends? Can you share friends with someone you are not friends with or even with someone you actively dislike and mistrust?

I didn't really understand this part, sorry.


Hm. It sounds like you could be engaging in a similar behavior by obsessively checking on how she's checking on you. Do you know what I mean? I could almost see you both behaving in a similar mirror-image way. Her commenting with mutual friends and you obsessing over what she's doing or if she's doing something. Is it possible to let go?

I think, like I said, that I have slightly obsessive/stalker tendencies myself (not that anyone has ever accused me of anything remotely similar or even of being clingy. But I know what I'm like!). Beyond that, I think that I allowed myself to get into a situation with this girl where I almost HAD to monitor her behaviour like she was monitoring mine. I blocked her a few times on FB (or at least stopped her from seeing my wall posts) but I wasn't quite ready to do what I've now done and tell her I wanted no more to do with her. What I did instead was keep a close eye on how much she was imitating or following me. She'd do things routinely like get insanely angry with me and then go back to posts she'd liked on FB and unlike them, stuff like that. Extreme passive-aggression. I had to be careful what I posted on FB because if it was about something I was doing that didn't involve her, she'd act insanely jealous - that sort of thing. She made it pretty obvious that she was following me around, though. I mean, she physically followed me on some occasions, or grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go (and that was in situations where it was difficult for me to physically shove her away, which I basically had to do), and once bragged that she'd managed to track me down on another online forum (not this one!)

What I think you're getting at is that I should just entirely ignore what she's doing. I do hear you on that. It's just a bit tricky, in part because we have mutual friends (or more accurately, people I'm friends with who also put up with her crazy behaviour to a certain extent), and mutual FB friends and that sort of thing.


It doesn't sound as if you have fully extricated yourself emotionally. But, perhaps you are still traumatized or need to process your fear of contact with this person. Perhaps you could have a conversation in Church about it? Directly? You might be surprised by her viewpoint, though you may want other parties nearby for safety.

It might ease things to work on your own anxious feelings and let go of what she might be doing that you cannot control and should not control.

I think at this stage we've had more than enough conversations about her viewpoint. :dry: I really tried to treat her with respect and to understand where she was coming from, but basically where she's coming from is crazyland. It almost always involved a lot of passive-aggression, attempted manipulation, guilt trips, and total self-centeredness. In the last convo we had, when I told her the friendship was over, she tried to tell me she was "fine" and had basically worked through everything with the help of therapy and had made huge changes. I hope the therapy has helped but it is extremely obvious that she hasn't changed a lot of her behaviours. I don't trust her in the slightest and view all of this "I've changed/will change" stuff as more attempted manipulation.

I have made others in the church more aware of just how weird and scary her behaviour is. Almost everyone agreed that extricating myself was the only healthy thing to do. Some thought I should have done it long before, though they also thought it was good that I tried to help her.

I wouldn't really say I'm "scared" at this point. There were times over the last couple of years when I definitely was - even if it was mainly fear that she was going to kill herself after guilt-tripping me, or whatever. I knew I had to extricate myself when I realised that I'd reached the stage that whenever I was confronted by her passive-aggression, I felt a combination of road rage and nausea. I feel much more at peace with things now, believe it or not! But I think I still have at least an...echo of that sickening feeling when I see her slavishly imitating/following my moves.

EDIT: I certainly don't want to do anything any more that involves paying her any attention at all. That would be a really bad move. She is a black hole of wanting attention, even if it's totally negative. It would be a real mistake to sit down and have a conversation or act like I'm in any way interested in what's going on with her.
 

Circle

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I think, like I said, that I have slightly obsessive/stalker tendencies myself (not that anyone has ever accused me of anything remotely similar or even of being clingy. But I know what I'm like!). Beyond that, I think that I allowed myself to get into a situation with this girl where I almost HAD to monitor her behaviour like she was monitoring mine. I blocked her a few times on FB (or at least stopped her from seeing my wall posts) but I wasn't quite ready to do what I've now done and tell her I wanted no more to do with her. What I did instead was keep a close eye on how much she was imitating or following me. She'd do things routinely like get insanely angry with me and then go back to posts she'd liked on FB and unlike them, stuff like that. Extreme passive-aggression. I had to be careful what I posted on FB because if it was about something I was doing that didn't involve her, she'd act insanely jealous - that sort of thing. She made it pretty obvious that she was following me around, though. I mean, she physically followed me on some occasions, or grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go (and that was in situations where it was difficult for me to physically shove her away, which I basically had to do), and once bragged that she'd managed to track me down on another online forum (not this one!)

Oh, wow. That is not okay at all. I would find this very threatening. :(
 

SilkRoad

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Oh, wow. That is not okay at all. I would find this very threatening. :(

Yeah. It was. And I failed to find the right balance in terms of wanting to help a screwed-up kid, and putting up with totally intolerable behaviour. I felt sorry for her because her parents either don't give a damn, or are not able to show that they do. I definitely did learn some lessons about having much firmer boundaries, as I don't think historically I've had very strong boundaries. I am glad to have learned that it is perfectly fine not only to say no, but to not have to give any reason for it.

THe weird thing about her is that sometimes she was incredibly lucid and would say that she realised her behaviour was unacceptable and she was sorry and would try to change. But I eventually realised that it was far better to not trust a word she said. I think the constant "I'm trying, I'm going to change" was just a manipulative way of trying to keep me in her life. (By the way, she engaged in very similar behaviours with a woman before me, who moved away with her husband - she didn't move away because of this situation, but it may have been a contributing factor!)
 

Circle

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EDIT: I certainly don't want to do anything any more that involves paying her any attention at all. That would be a really bad move. She is a black hole of wanting attention, even if it's totally negative. It would be a real mistake to sit down and have a conversation or act like I'm in any way interested in what's going on with her.

Yup. Given the context, that seems like a really good idea. It sounds dangerous to engage her.
 

Circle

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THe weird thing about her is that sometimes she was incredibly lucid and would say that she realised her behaviour was unacceptable and she was sorry and would try to change. But I eventually realised that it was far better to not trust a word she said. I think the constant "I'm trying, I'm going to change" was just a manipulative way of trying to keep me in her life. (By the way, she engaged in very similar behaviours with a woman before me, who moved away with her husband - she didn't move away because of this situation, but it may have been a contributing factor!)

It's awesome that you recognized that as manipulation. Even if people are sorry for the behavior and apologetic, I've trained myself to just focus on how it makes me feel and if I don't feel comfortable having a relationship, that's what I listen to. A lot of times in bad relationships we can be manipulated into choosing the feelings of another over our own feelings. That's really dangerous.
 

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She sounds mentally ill, as you suggest in the opening post.

There isn't much one can do in this case you aren't already doing.
 

SilkRoad

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It's awesome that you recognized that as manipulation. Even if people are sorry for the behavior and apologetic, I've trained myself to just focus on how it makes me feel and if I don't feel comfortable having a relationship, that's what I listen to. A lot of times in bad relationships we can be manipulated into choosing the feelings of another over our own feelings. That's really dangerous.

I think eventually you realise that the only safe thing to do is to recognise it as manipulation. I have a tendency to believe what people say but it is wise to realise that many people will manipulate to the point of lying to get what they want. You're also right about the danger of choosing others' feelings over your own. I do suspect I have slightly (though I think only slightly - this was an unusual type of situation for me to get into) co-dependent tendencies. I do want to feel approved by others and liked by them and will sometimes give too much in an attempt to get that. I really learned a lot from this situation. Fortunately the vast majority of my friends have been very healthy and supportive people.
 

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Trying to escape her own situation, she probably idolizes you. Tries to learn from you. Without having the proper social skillset to moderate her obsession about you.

I was once in a similar situation, someone that was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, but who had a strikingly beautifully creative intellect. I enjoyed talking to this person a lot. I was also being idolized and obsessed about, it lasted for about 2 years in total. Although I always deliberatly kept a little bit of distance between us, I too saw myself as that persons mentor of sorts. Unfortunately, some events caused that person to retreat even farther away. I think she started to feel overwhelmed and as a result cut ties with me herself.

Anyway I think she needs professional help. Someone who can stay on her neutral side.
 

Circle

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I think eventually you realise that the only safe thing to do is to recognise it as manipulation. I have a tendency to believe what people say but it is wise to realise that many people will manipulate to the point of lying to get what they want. You're also right about the danger of choosing others' feelings over your own. I do suspect I have slightly (though I think only slightly - this was an unusual type of situation for me to get into) co-dependent tendencies. I do want to feel approved by others and liked by them and will sometimes give too much in an attempt to get that. I really learned a lot from this situation. Fortunately the vast majority of my friends have been very healthy and supportive people.

The best manipulators probably don't even realize they're doing it. It can be based on some very primitive and fundamental emotional need that they fail to recognize. That's part of what makes it so complicated. In a sense, they don't even know they're manipulating. To me that's why you have to let go of what other people feel, believe, think, and do and focus on how you feel being in relationship with them. If you feel bad being in a relationship / friendship with them, that is sufficient reason to let go of them. You don't have to figure out why.
 

SilkRoad

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By the way, it may also be worth noting that it takes me a long time to completely get over unpleasant situations, and I am also prone to delayed reactions. I think that because I thought I was helping her, I pushed down a lot of my normal reactions - I mean, I would get angry and lecture her and so on (I really yelled at her on a number of occasions), but I guess I didn't see how massively violating her behaviour tended to be. It started to seem "normal" from her, though on some levels I always realised it was totally abnormal. I sort of thought that if I hung in there long enough I could really help her, but now I'm pretty sure the only really helpful thing I did was push her into therapy.

Anyway, I have a feeling that although the situation is considerably alleviated (I mean, all she can really do now is imitate my blog), I'm sort of having a delayed reaction to a bunch of stuff that happened a while ago now. If I notice something which really doesn't affect me much, like a slavishly imitating blog post that she's done, it reminds me of all this crap I put up with and I feel angry/sick.
 

SilkRoad

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Trying to escape her own situation, she probably idolizes you. Tries to learn from you. Without having the proper social skillset to moderate her obsession about you.

I was once in a similar situation, someone that was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, but who had a strikingly beautifully creative intellect. I enjoyed talking to this person a lot. I was also being idolized and obsessed about, it lasted for about 2 years in total. Although I always deliberatly kept a little bit of distance between us, I too saw myself as that persons mentor of sorts. Unfortunately, some events caused that person to retreat even farther away. I think she started to feel overwhelmed and as a result cut ties with me herself.

Anyway I think she needs professional help. Someone who can stay on her neutral side.

Yes, I am pretty sure you're right about idolizing me. It is clear that she views me/my friends as having some sort of perfect, wonderful life (she told me so in almost those words) and since she has these BPD sort of tendencies, she tries to take on my personality and escape her personal hell by trying to obtain my "wonderful, perfect" life. The person she imitated/stalked before also seemed very together and happy (I'm fairly together and happy, but I seem more so than I actually am, haha!). But a bit of hero worship is one thing, creepy stalkerishness is another.

Your experience is interesting. Although I wish she would have distanced herself of her own accord... I had managed to push her away a bit and gain some distance, but not nearly enough. Trying to find a balance with this person proved impossible, hence I had to cut the ties brutally (telling her the friendship was over, FB blocking etc.) I think that those with BPD or tendencies can be very interesting and creative people, which this girl shows signs of being. I know for sure they're very sensitive. Unfortunatley it is all messed up...
 
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