Family member overshares and exaggerates family issues

For the past few years, I've been really bothered by the fact that a family member constantly tells acquaintances things that are non of their business and exaggerates problems so that people think we are completely ignorant and incompetant.

I started thinking about this because a series of older narcissistic men started regularly butting in and trying to take over our lives and kept saying we can't make decisions without them. And it took me years to figure out that my sister was inviting this by oversharing and exaggerating things to virtual strangers. She even gave our home address a violent man who stalked us for a year (he claimed to be worried about us).

One time, we had an attempted burglary that failed. The police had actually surrounded our house before we even knew there was a burglar and caught him within seconds of us first seeing him. My sister posted about it on Facebook and told everyone we met for years that people regularly try to break into our home. And that has caused several horrible creepy men to keep saying we can't live without their protection and advice and keep hounding us.

And it happens with many other aspects of our home life. My sister is quick to declare our belongings defective or things we do to be failures which makes everyone she talks to think we are incompetant. I know oversharing is a big problem nowadays in families. It's just worse when the oversharer is a pessimist so everyone thinks the worst about things that are not really their business.

I've learned to be ruthless about shutting out the meddlers as soon as they get intrusive, but its just so annoying to have this stream of distorted information going out all the time. Many times I have had to tell my sister to stop giving out information about me and household finances to men who behaved as if they had intimate relationships with one or both of us.

She's just compeltely clueless, chatting on and on with a creepy married man until I showed her evidence that he had been accused of being a serial rapist (that's one of the men she gave our home address to). Is there an obsessive compulsive blabbing disease?

You don't say how old your sister is or if she has a mental health condition. If you have tried just telling her she is being foolhardy and that has not worked, you could try these things, too: If she is under psychiatric care, emailing, calling or writing a snail mail letter to the doctor or therapist to let them know of this risk-taking your sister is doing. They will not be able to talk to you about your sister's health, but they will take your information into account in dealing with her. And calling your local police department's non-emergency number, and asking if they have anyone on their community relations staff -- preferably a female officer -- who will come to your home or make an appointment with you and your sister to tell her some hard facts about how dangerous her behavior is for YOU and for herself.

Thanks. I do suspect she has mental conditions but she will never admit to having a problem. For some reason, she feels compelled to just blab in any social situation. Thanks for your opinions though. It's good to know I don't come off as unreasonable or touchy to be bothered by her behavior.

I know you have had issues with your sister but now she is endangering you. I dont know what the right answer is but is there someone from a social service agency that can help?

You're welcome. I think you are right to be concerned and bothered by her potentially dangerous oversharing.

From what you described previously your sister is very unwell. I’d try to involve social services and or law enforcement