The Impact of Crime: Isolation on Victims

First, It Is Necessary To Accept That Scam Victims Are Victims Of Crimes!

Scam victims are as affected by these terrible crimes as many other types of victims – even though the trauma is not physical.

Crime victims often suffer a broad range of psychological and social injuries that persist long after the crime itself.

They can feel intense feelings of anger, fear, isolation, low self-esteem, helplessness, and depression – these are common reactions.

Like combat veterans, crime victims may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, including recurrent memories of the incident, sleep disturbances, feelings of alienation, emotional numbing, and other anxiety-related symptoms.

Victimization can shatter basic assumptions about the self and the world in which individuals need in order to function normally in their daily lives:

• that they are safe from harm, that the world is meaningful and just
• and that they are good, decent people.

This happens not only to victims of violent assaults but also to victims of robbery and burglary, and even scams or financial fraud, and to their friends and family as well.

It has been suggested that “survivors of prolonged, repeated trauma,” such as battered women and abused children, and scam victims often suffer what is called “complex post-traumatic stress disorder,” which can manifest as severe “personality changes, including deformations of relatedness and identity which make them particularly vulnerable to repeated harm, both self-inflicted and at the hands of others.”

The emotional damage and social isolation caused by victimization also may be compounded by a lack of support, and even stigmatization, from friends, family and social institutions, or even other victims that compare their experiences.  This can become a “second wound” for the victim. Those closest to the victim may be traumatized by the crime in ways that make them unsupportive of the victim’s needs. Researchers found that close friends and family members, particularly of a victim of online financial fraud, sometimes withdraw from and blame the victim.

Crime victims must also contend with society’s tendency to blame them for the crime, which compounds the trauma of the event. To protect their belief in a just world where people get what they deserve, and to distance themselves from the possibility of random or uncontrollable injury, many prefer to see victims as somehow responsible for their fate.

The lack of support for victims trying to recover from a crime can exacerbate the psychological harm caused by victimization and make recovery even more difficult. Fortunately SCARS is here to help with this.

However, when victims do seek help, especially from amateurs they may be treated with insensitivity. They may feel ignored or even revictimized by the criminal justice process as well, such as when reporting to the police, who are not always concerned with the needs of the victim. Scam victims in particular may feel left out of the justice process. When a scam victim asks to be informed as the case progresses, they are often told, “There is nothing we can do.” This tends to make the victim feel isolated, and that isolation can continue for a significant amount of time.

Isolation As An Extension Of The Scam

Isolation is a powerful tactic used by scammers on their victims to manipulate and control them!

Isolation is a pivotal tactic that controlling criminals use in order to weaken their victims, prevent them from hearing others’ perspectives, and to bring them into line with their own requirements.

Often scammers will express possessiveness and jealousy to help keep victims from social contact with friends and family. Some tactics aimed at isolating the victim include telling them that they (others) will not understand, that there is a need for secrecy, etc. Ironically, friends and family DO NOT understand and this reinforces the criminals gaslighting and manipulation. These fraudsters often spend considerable time questioning the victims and controlling incoming information including what she reads, calling her names if she spends time with friends and family, and more. There are a whole range of isolation tactics that victims have described being used on them by the criminals to isolate them.

Isolation is a debilitating consequence of abuse and control

Anyone who has lived through a relationship scam has likely had an ongoing experience of being abused by the scammers leading them to become isolated as a result.  For instance, the victim may withdraw from friends and family to save face or because they feel misunderstood, judged, stigmatized, or not supported when they tried to explain the relationship. Particular tactics used by scammers are aimed at isolating the victim which can lead the victim to become extremely dependent on their controlling “partner” (the scammers.)

Isolation facilitates the crime

Isolation (physical, social or emotional) is often used to facilitate power and control over victim to further the crime.

Isolation reduces the opportunity for the abused victim to be rescued or escape from the scam. It also helps disorient the victim and makes the victim more dependent on the scammer. The degree of power and control over the victim is contingent upon the degree of their psychological or emotional isolation.

Isolation of the victim from the outside world is an important element of psychological control. Isolation includes controlling a person’s social activity: whom they see, whom they talk to, where they go and any other method to limit their access to others. It may also include limiting what material is read, even the music they listen to. One way that these remote scammers do this is through two techniques: 1, the supply what they want to victim to read or listen to, or 2) they occupy so much of the victim’s time that they do not have time for much else. It can also include insisting on knowing where they are and and what they are doing – to the victim this may sound like caring and attention, but it is manipulation designed to further isolate the victim.

Scammers often exhibit hypersensitive and reactive jealousy.

What Is Social Withdrawal Or Social Isolation?

After the scam ends, victims tend to increasingly isolate themselves.

This is done for many reasons. In part guilt and shame plays a role – especially immediately after the scam ends (though this can return later). It can also be a form of denial – that victims just cannot or do not want to hear or talk about it, so they isolate themselves from others that may know about it.

But the fact is that isolation affects more than 50% of financial fraud victims to one extent or another.

Ask yourself these questions?

• Are you spending increasingly more time alone because you think no one understands what you’ve experienced or what you’re going through?
• Are you avoiding social situations because you might be reminded of things you hope to forget?
• Do you avoid others because you feel you should be able to deal with challenges on your own?

These can be signs of social withdrawal or social isolation.

Social withdrawal

Social withdrawal is avoiding people and activities you would usually enjoy. It can also be withdrawing from your own recovery!

For some people, this can progress to a point of social isolation, where you may even want to avoid contact with family and close friends and just be by yourself most of the time. You may want to be alone because you feel it’s tiring or upsetting to be with other people. Sometimes a vicious cycle can develop where the more time you spend alone, the less you feel like people understand you. And the less you feel like people understand you, the more time you want to spend alone.

Most scam victims show signs of social withdrawal or social isolation after the scam ends, and later on during other major life changes.

Scam victims may have been avoiding other people and activities for a long time and have become uncomfortable being around other people more generally. People who have experienced traumatic events — whether or not as part of scam — also sometimes withdraw or isolate themselves. This is somewhat normal but it does need support to overcome.

Social withdrawal and social isolation can make it difficult to recover from these crimes and even to do the things you normally would enjoy or to get through the day.

Some of the effects of this isolation can include:

• loneliness
• relationship problems
• sleeping problems
• alcohol or drug problems

If left unchecked, social withdrawal or isolation can lead to or be associated with depression and other mental disorders. Such behavior can also negatively affect those you care about.

See A Local Trauma Counselor or Therapist

SCARS recommends that all scam victims find and see a local trauma counselor or therapist, at least to be evaluated after the scam ends, For most victims, this will be an essential part of your recovery.

Here are directories or resources to help you fund a local trauma counselor or therapist:

• www.opencounseling.com
• www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/trauma-and-ptsd
• www.betterhelp.com/therapists
• www.nbcc.org/Search/CounselorFind

If your country has a national health system, then contact them to set up an appointment with a trauma professional.

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