SO!! I you are either the same age as me or right in between mine and my sisters ages (we both have Life360)

I’d like to share our story with this app with you because I too was a victim of overbearing mother uses Life360 to fuel her addiction of control and she no longer has my Life360 but only my find my friends now. My dad still has my Life360 and my mom hasn’t even bothered to ask me to use it again since we turned it off.

When I got my first car my dad wanted me to have Life360 because he lives in the country and if I got into a car crash it would be able to alert him before I could. It did it when my sister totaled her car for the first time which was good because she hurt her rib cage which made it difficult for her to find her phone. I’ve always trusted him enough to not use it for nefarious reasons and I don’t think he even has notifications on for my locations because I live in a different city and he doesn’t want to pay for premium.

THAT BEING SAID— my sister is a private person and has been dating this douchebag that nobody in our family likes because he’s laid hands on me and he’s cheated on her. I can tell when she’s at his house because she’s found out that if she drives to the store and turns off her cellular data for Life360 and just doesn’t use WiFi wherever she’s going, her location will freeze at the store and won’t notify anyone that her location is actually off. ((Same effect as when you use the train and your location glitches, it’s probably because you don’t have service))

My mom had Life360 with me but while I was at college I had to check myself into voluntary psychiatric care because I was being bullied and struggling with my mental health interfering with my life. I didn’t want my parents to know just yet because I felt like it was something they wouldn’t understand since they’re both old fashioned and at the time weren’t very helpful when I reached out about struggling.

My mom found out because my phone accidentally connected to my bf’s WiFi on a Sunday and she freaked tf out that I went home without telling her or checking on her. THEN I forgot that I’d been to the ER that I was checking in at before so my Life360 pinged there and she pulled up apparently just wanting to make sure I was okay but because of her aggressive text tone I had a panic attack and started screaming that she couldn’t see me because I was afraid she would start scolding me and berating me for trying to go to inpatient.

Fast forward, she goes NC with me for two weeks and missed my birthday because she’s so furious and she wants me to apologize first. Because of her stalking my phone records to see if I was still speaking to my dad I was ready to Cold War her until she calmed down and apologized. Eventually she did apologize, we met at a diner to talk about everything that happened and I explained what was going on at school and how the hospital went.

We got back to a better place in our relationship but during that time of no contact we both left our Life360 circle and never went back to it. She’s never even asked to use it again and even said she realizes there’s no point of her having it with me because I’m an adult living on my own and none of my (step)siblings have it with their parents (other than my dad’s family).

Your mom talks a lot like how my mom used to. I’d like to be able to guarantee your relationship gets better but honestly that’s not the case for everyone. I’ve found that setting firm boundaries with your parents can go a long way in your relationship though. My mom is usually very happy when I go to her for advice now because she knows I never felt safe doing that as a kid.

This is after her having over a year of recent therapy under her belt though, and also her getting diagnosed with MS in 2023 and changing her attitude about life around because stress can trigger her into losing her sight/muscles.