Why Does A Scam Victim Become More Vulnerable After A Scam Than Before?
Why does a scam victim become more vulnerable after the scam and the traumaTrauma Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, making you feel helpless in a dangerous world. Psychological trauma can leave you struggling with upsetting emotions, memories, and anxiety that won’t go away. It can also leave you feeling numb, disconnected, and unable to trust other people. Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety or other emotional shocks, but any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and isolated can result in trauma, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s not the objective circumstances that determine whether an event is traumatic, but your subjective emotional experience of the event. The more frightened and helpless you feel, the more likely you are to be traumatized. Trauma requires treatment, either through counseling or therapy or through trauma-oriented support programs, such as those offered by SCARS. it produces than they were before the scam and the trauma?
SCARS believes that there are several reasons for this.
These are the 7 Deadly Sins of Post Scam Victim Vulnerability:
1. Cognitive Dissonance:
Cognitive dissonance is a mental conflict that occurs when a scam victim’s beliefs don’t line up with their actions. It’s an uncomfortable state of mind when someone has contradictory values, attitudes, or perspectives about the same thing. The degree of discomfort varies with the subject matter, as well as with how well the person copes with self-contradiction. One example is a smoker who knows all too well that nicotine causes lung cancer but takes puff after puff anyway to ease his anxiety in the moment—and then feels a sense of shameShame Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion typically associated with a negative evaluation of the self; withdrawal motivations; and feelings of distress, exposure, mistrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness.. There’s some sort of discrepancy between what your values are and what you feel at that moment. In the case of scam victims, this shows as taking risks again on dating websites or social media that should never be taken.
2. Cognitive Impairment:
Scam victims who suffer trauma in childhood or adulthood may experience a greater amount of cognitive decline as they age than individuals who haven’t experienced trauma, a new study found. This means that decision-making can be significantly affected, either by reduced logical function or increased emotional reactiveness. It is very common for a scam victim to complain about fuzzy thinking or a “brain fog” (what we call a “scam fog”) in the months following the end of the scam.
3. False Healing:
Many scam victims believe they are psychologically healed far faster than they actually are or able to heal. We see this all the time in scam victims who believe after a couple of months they are great when the reality is it may take far more than a year to heal.
4. Cognitive Biases:
A cognitive bias is a flaw in our thinking that distorts the way we perceive and act. The present estimate, according to Wikipedia, is that there are 140 of them others show 188. A cognitive bias is not classified as pathological but rather as a normal, perhaps even helpful event in our daily lives. Most of them however seem distinctly unhelpful. They can be countered, so neurologists tell us, by our awareness of them, by logic, and by reflective thinking: though getting rid of habitual ones, they caution, can be a heavy energy demand on the neocortex. After a scam, scam victim biases can become amplified and a victim can place greater reliance on their biases as other mental functions are impaired.
5. Faith In External Entities:
During the scam, every scam victim had faith in the scammerScammer A Scammer or Fraudster is someone that engages in deception to obtain money or achieve another objective. They are criminals that attempt to deceive a victim into sending more or performing some other activity that benefits the scammer. drilled into them through manipulation and control. However, after the scam that part of your mind that believed so strongly remains active and it is very easy to transfer your own agency to yet another external entity rather than assume control of yourself. Many scam victims increase their belief in god, fate, karma, etc. as a way of seeking answers and looking to find stability in a hostile and dangerous world. This outsourcing of your own agency often increases as trauma increases and not only makes it harder to recover, but also just to remain safe – online and in the real world.
6. Unrealistic Faith In Others:
After the scam, almost all scam victims just “know” that they will be better if they can just talk and share with other victims of scamsScams A Scam is a confidence trick - a crime - is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust through deception. Scams or confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, or greed and exploiting that. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men' - criminals) at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". A scam is a crime even if no money was lost.. This opens a giant backdoorBackdoor A hidden method for bypassing normal computer authentication or access systems. into your mind that these others can pour through. This allows other broken people to influence what you believe, embed false knowledge and urban legends, and profoundly influence your ability to recover and emotionally heal. This is so impactful that it is one of the two main reasons that victims do not recover.
7. AngerAnger Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, trigger, hurt or threat. About one-third of scam victims become trapped in anger for extended periods of time following a scam. A person experiencing anger will often experience physical effects, such as increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and increased levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline. Some view anger as an emotion that triggers a part of the fight or flight response. Anger becomes the predominant feeling behaviorally, cognitively, and physiologically. Anger can have many physical and mental consequences. While most of those who experience anger explain its arousal as a result of "what has happened to them", psychologists point out that an angry person can very well be mistaken because anger causes a loss in self-monitoring capacity and objective observability. & Hate, and the Other 4 sisters of Grief:
Anger is a normal part of the grief process. But if allowed to grow it quickly turns into hate. Scam victims can seize onto hate in as little as a couple of weeks after the scam ends – depending on how it ends and the support that they find. Likewise, the other phases of grief can have a huge impact on everything from your emotions to your thinking and decision-making. These leave most scam victims significantly impaired for many months, sometimes years depending on the attention that they have given to their recovery.
How do you counter these?
While the answer to this is very simple, in practice it is complex and requires serious inward exploration by every scam victim.
The simple answer is to stop reacting emotionally, give everything time before deciding, stop making assumptions, remove equivocation and minimization from your speech patterns, and firmly understand your vulnerabilities. But in reality, this is very hard for a scam victim.
It is hard to admit to yourself that you are wounded and that you cannot do what you did before. You are not as resilient, mentally strong, or even as intelligent as you were before. Things will triggerTRIGGERS A trigger is a stimulus that sets off a memory of a trauma or a specific portion of a traumatic experience. responses and some of them will not be big emotional outbursts but rather biases in the decisions that you are making. It is hard to even be sure when your vulnerabilities are showing and causing actions or effects.
The ways you can counter these are as follows:
Journal every day – this gives a scam victim a log of their feelings and actions that allow them to look back and compare with the present. This is also wonderful to see the progress you are making over time.
Understand each Trigger as it happens – when you feel triggered stop and think about what just happened. Why it happened, and what was the cause? Then you can consciously choose better outcomes.
Have a Decision Buddy – Every scam victim needs someone they can trust whom they can talk to about decisions that they have to make and get another person’s (less broken person’s) feedback. Stay in constant contact with them to explore what is happening with you – that can be our group, a counselor or therapist, or a friend or family member.
Actively Participate in the Support GroupSupport Group In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic, such as romance scams. Members with the same issues can come together for sharing coping strategies, to feel more empowered and for a sense of community. The help may take the form of providing and evaluating relevant information, relating personal experiences, listening to and accepting others' experiences, providing sympathetic understanding and establishing social networks. A support group may also work to inform the public or engage in advocacy. They can be supervised or not. SCARS support groups are moderated by the SCARS Team and or volunteers. – participating provides a scam victim with positive reinforcement and helps them to redevelop those broken mental skills. It provides a place to explore what you are feeling, your fears, and the things that are going wrong or right. To sign up for a SCARS support & recovery group please visit support.AgainstScams.org
Learn Learn Learn – use our resources and others online to begin to really understand your mind and how it works when traumatized. Start with RomanceScamsNOW.com and Google from there. But be careful, there is a lot of false information out there that can derail your recovery. If you find something interesting share it with the SCARS Team to make sure it both applies to scam victims and that it is accurate, the same for your counselor or therapist – these are your two truth validators. SCARS cannot diagnose you, but we can tell you if it applies in general.
These will give you a framework that you can use (along with everything else) to help yourself progress more safely through your recovery!
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SCARS provides the leading Support & Recovery program for relationship scamRelationship Scam A Relationship Scam is a one-to-one criminal act that involves a trust relationship and uses deception & manipulation to get a victim to give to the criminal something of value, such as money! Click here to learn more: What Is A Relationship Scam? victims – completely FREE!
Our managed peer supportPeer support Peer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, reflective listening (reflecting content and/or feelings), or in a support group. Peer support is also used to refer to initiatives where colleagues, members of self-help organizations and others meet, in person or online, to give each other connection and support on a reciprocal basis. Peer support is distinct from other forms of social support in that the source of support is a peer, a person who is similar in fundamental ways to the recipient of the support; their relationship is one of equality. A peer is in a position to offer support by virtue of relevant experience: he or she has "been there, done that" and can relate to others who are now in a similar situation. Trained peer support workers such as SCARS Volunteers receive special training and may be required to obtain Continuing Education Units, similar to clinical staff. Some other trained peer support workers may also be law-enforcement personnel and firefighters as well as emergency medical responders. groups allow victims to talk to other survivorsSurvivor A Scam Survivor is a victim who has been able to fully accept the reality of their situation. That they were the victim of a crime and are not to blame. They are working on their emotional recovery and reduction of any trauma either on their own, through a qualified support organization, or through counseling or therapy. And has done their duty and reported the crime to their local police, national police, and on Anyscam.com and recover in the most experienced environment possible, for as long as they need. Recovery takes as long as it takes – we put no limits on our support!
SCARS is the most trusted support & education provider in the world. Our team is certified in trauma-informedTrauma-Informed Trauma-informed care shifts the focus from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” A trauma-informed approach to care acknowledges that health care needs to have a complete picture of a patient’s life situation — past and present — in order to provide effective care services with a healing orientation. Adopting trauma-informed practices can potentially improve patient engagement, treatment adherence, and health outcomes. care, grief counselingCounseling Counseling is the professional guidance of the individual by utilizing psychological methods especially in collecting case history data, using various techniques of the personal interview, and testing interests and aptitudes. A mental health counselor (MHC), or counselor, is a person who works with individuals and groups to promote optimum mental and emotional health. Such persons may help individuals deal with issues associated with addiction and substance abuse; family, parenting, and marital problems; stress management; self-esteem; and aging. They may also work with "Social Workers", "Psychiatrists", and "Psychologists". SCARS does not provide mental health counseling., and so much more!
To apply to join our groups visit support.AgainstScams.org
We also offer separate support groupsSupport Groups In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic, such as romance scams. Members with the same issues can come together for sharing coping strategies, to feel more empowered and for a sense of community. The help may take the form of providing and evaluating relevant information, relating personal experiences, listening to and accepting others' experiences, providing sympathetic understanding and establishing social networks. A support group may also work to inform the public or engage in advocacy. They can be supervised or not. SCARS support groups are moderated by the SCARS Team and or volunteers. for family & friends too.
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To learn more about the SCARS STAR Membership visit membership.AgainstScams.org
To become a SCARS STAR Member right now visit join.AgainstScams.org
To Learn More Also Look At Our Article Catalogs
Essential Tools For Every Scam SurvivorSurvivor A Scam Survivor is a victim who has been able to fully accept the reality of their situation. That they were the victim of a crime and are not to blame. They are working on their emotional recovery and reduction of any trauma either on their own, through a qualified support organization, or through counseling or therapy. And has done their duty and reported the crime to their local police, national police, and on Anyscam.com From SCARS Publishing
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Each is based on our SCARS Team’s 32 plus years of experience.
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SCARS GREEN BOOK
Self-Help Self-Paced Recovery Program Guide
LEARN HOW TO RECOVER ON YOUR OWN
This program is designed to help scam victims struggling to recover on their own and for those who want to understand the overall process. You can be using other resources, such as trauma counseling or therapy, qualified support groups, or completely independent – on your own!
The SCARS Steps program is a complete program and is provided for the purpose of helping scam victims to overcome this experience. Throughout this SCARS Steps Program, we speak about issues and challenges that a victim may have and help guide them through their recovery. But each person is different and it is important to understand your own reasons for being vulnerable to being scammed.
After the trauma of being scammed, you need to take steps to recover and move on. This may be an alternative to counseling in the short term, but we still encourage you to seek out professional help & support. Throughout this SCARS Steps Program, we speak about issues, challenges, defects, or problems that a victim may have in a generalized way.
The SCARS GREEN BOOK will help you recover from your scam offline and it will always be there when you need it!
SCARS SLATE BOOK – Let Us Explain What Happened!
A Guide For Families & Friends Of Scam Victims
HOW TO HELP ROMANCE SCAM VICTIMS FOR FAMILIES & FRIENDS OF SCAM VICTIMS
This SCARS Publishing book represents a complete guide to help the families and friends understand how these scams work and how to help the victim.
The SCARS Slate Book should be purchased by family and friends to better understand what happened to the victim and the traumatic impact on them. But it can also be shared by the victim so that they do not have to explain to family and friends about the scam. This publication is to help others to help Scam Victims to make it through this traumatic experience and recover.
Each person is different and it is important to understand how relationship scamsRelationship Scam A Relationship Scam is a one-to-one criminal act that involves a trust relationship and uses deception & manipulation to get a victim to give to the criminal something of value, such as money! Click here to learn more: What Is A Relationship Scam? work and why people are vulnerable; to being scammed, how they were lured in, then groomed and manipulated. This understanding is essential in helping them through the process of ending the scam and then on to recovery. The SCARS Slate Book will provide the information necessary to help support a victim through this process.
SCARS RED BOOK
Your Personal Scam Evidence & Crime Record Organizer
ORGANIZE YOUR INFORMATION TO MAKE THE REPORTING PROCESS SIMPLE!
Helps you get and stay organized. This publication is to help Scam Victims organize their crime information. Complete this information before reporting to the police then bring this book with you
Before or after reporting to the police the RED BOOK gives you a dedicated tool to record all the essential facts of this crime. The Victim, the Scammers, the Money, and your Police interactions. Everything that really matters can be easily recorded for your immediate use and for the future!
As we have seen, money recovery/repayment programs can become available years after the scam ends and you need to keep all the details of this crime in case it is needed. We have also seen scammers being extradited to the U.S. and other countries, this will help in the event you testify or give statements, Additionally, this helps you have your information ready to qualify for victims’ benefits, compensation, or aid.
The Official SCARS RED BOOK is your way of recording all the important facts of this crime so that you do not lose essential information, Complete the RED BOOK then put it away with the confidence that you will have it if or when it is needed.
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By the Society of Citizens Against Relationship ScamsSCARS SCARS - Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc. A government registered crime victims' assistance & crime prevention nonprofit organization based in Miami, Florida, U.S.A. SCARS supports the victims of scams worldwide and through its partners in more than 60 countries around the world. Incorporated in 2015, its team has 30 years of continuous experience educating and supporting scam victims. Visit www.AgainstScams.org to learn more about SCARS. Inc.
A Worldwide Crime Victims Assistance & Crime Prevention Nonprofit Organization Headquartered In Miami Florida USA & Monterrey NL Mexico, with Partners In More Than 60 Countries
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