Telling Your Story Is Hard
But It Is Hard For A Reason, And By Telling Your Story Over And Over It Will Get Easier
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., 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., guilt, and self-blameSelf-Blame Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them. SCARS seeks to mitigate the prejudice against victims and the perception that victims are in any way responsible for the actions of offenders or scammers. There is historical and current prejudice against the victims of domestic violence and sex crimes, such as the greater tendency to blame victims of rape than victims of robbery. Scam victims are often blamed by family & friends for the crime. Scam victims also engage in self-blame even though they are not to blame. play big roles in why telling your story is hard. But it is also your traumatic memories that when you revisit them cause your body to relive the trauma.
BUT YOU CAN STEAL THEIR POWER!
It Is So Important For You To Be Telling Your Story
It can be important for traumatized 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. to tell their stories for several reasons, but not just once and in just one way. The objective in telling your story can be many, but at the very minimum is to help you steal away the pain that your story causes you!
Here are some of the reasons why this is important:
- Emotional Healing: Telling your story can be a cathartic experience for many victims, allowing them to process and release the emotions and trauma associated with the experience. Speaking about what happened can provide a sense of validation and relief, helping scam victims to feel heard and understood.
- Awareness and Prevention: By sharing their experiences, victims can raise awareness about these scams (especially with family and friends) and potentially prevent others from falling victim to them. Scammers often use similar tactics and techniques, and by sharing these stories, victims can help others recognize warning signs and avoid similar situations.
- Holding Scammers Accountable: Victims can also help hold scammers accountable by reporting their experiences to the appropriate law enforcement authorities. Reporting scams can lead to investigations and potentially lead to the arrest and prosecution of scammers, preventing them from continuing to victimize others. They can also lead to the recovery of your money!
- Support Networks: Telling your story can also help you and other victims connect with support networks, including other victims of the same scam, advocacy groups such as SCARS, and mental healthMental health Mental health, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), is "a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community". According to WHO, mental health includes "subjective well-being, perceived self-efficacy, autonomy, competence, intergenerational dependence, and self-actualization of one's intellectual and emotional potential, among others". From the perspectives of positive psychology or of holism, mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and to create a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience. Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how one defines "mental health". professionals. These connections can provide much-needed emotional support and guidance as victims navigate the aftermath of the scam.
Why Does It Feel So Bad?
The retelling of their story can make scam victims feel like they are reliving their trauma all over again.
What is the benefit of telling your story? How does it help with residual denialDenial Denial is a refusal or unwillingness to accept something or to accept reality. Refusal to admit the truth or reality of something, refusal to acknowledge something unpleasant; And as a term of Psychology: denial is a defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality., guilt, and shame?
Telling your story can make it feel like you are reliving the trauma all over again. While your mind knows, your body does not. When scam victims retell their stories they are revisiting painful memories and emotions associated with the experience and the body feels like it is happening all over again. Victims may feel anxious, scared, or overwhelmed as they recount the details of the scam, which can triggerTRIGGERS A trigger is a stimulus that sets off a memory of a trauma or a specific portion of a traumatic experience. the same fight-or-flight response they experienced during the initial incident.
Despite The Potential Discomfort, There Are Real Benefits To Telling Your Story
Firstly, telling your story can help with residual denial, guilt, and shame by providing an opportunity to process the experience and work through any negative feelings that may be lingering. Victims may feel guilty or ashamed for falling for the scam or for not realizing sooner that it was a scam. By telling their story, they can receive validation and support from others who have gone through similar experiences, which can help alleviate those feelings of guilt and shame.
Retelling the story can also help victims gain a sense of control over the situation. Scams can make victims feel powerless and vulnerable, but by speaking out and sharing their stories, victims can reclaim some of that power and take steps toward healing and recovery.
Finally, retelling the story can raise awareness about the scam and help prevent others from falling victim to it. Victims may feel a sense of purpose and accomplishment by sharing their stories and potentially helping others avoid a similar fate.
Retelling the story can be a difficult but necessary step toward healing and recovery for almost all scam victims. It provides an opportunity to process emotions, gain a sense of control, and potentially help others.
When Scam Victims Begin Telling Your Story …
When scam victims retell the difficult aspects of their stories, it helps them process the trauma or grief.
How does it help them to process traumatic memories and feel like these memories have less control over them with each retelling?
This is actually simple, but the psychology can be complex.
When scam victims retell the difficult aspects of their stories, it can help them process the trauma or grief in several ways:
- It can help victims make sense of what happened to them. Telling your story allows you to organize your thoughts and emotions surrounding the experience, making it easier to process and understand what they went through.
- It can help victims acknowledge and accept their feelings. By sharing their story, victims can express their emotions in a safe and supportive environment, which can help them process their feelings and come to terms with the impact of the scam on their lives.
- It can help victims develop a sense of control over the situation. When retelling their story, victims can assert their agency and gain a sense of empowerment, which can help them feel less helpless and more in control of their lives.
- It can help victims desensitize to the traumatic memories. Retelling the story repeatedly can help victims become desensitized to the difficult memories and emotions associated with the experience, which can reduce the emotional intensity of the memories over time.
- It can help victims develop a new narrative. Retelling the story can help victims reinterpret the events and develop a new narrative that emphasizes their strength and resilienceResilience Is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. Psychological resilience is the ability to mentally or emotionally cope with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly. Resilience exists when the person uses "mental processes and behaviors in promoting personal assets and protecting self from the potential negative effects of stressors". In simpler terms, psychological resilience exists in people who develop psychological and behavioral capabilities that allow them to remain calm during crises/chaos and to move on from the incident without long-term negative consequences. In popular accounts, psychological resilience is sometimes likened to a "psychological immune system". in the face of adversity.
By telling your story, most scam victims can process traumatic memories and gain a sense of control over the situation. Over time, the memories may become less painful and less controlling, allowing victims to move forward with their lives in a more positive and empowered way. It’s important for victims to seek support from mental health professionals and advocacy groups to facilitate the healing and recovery process.
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. & Resentment
When traumatized scam victims retell painful aspects of their story, it can be normal for them to be angry or resent the person asking them to share the details of their traumatic experience. They often lash out at the people trying to help them by asking about those terribly painful details.
It is normal for traumatized scam victims to feel angry or resentful towards the person asking them to share the details of their traumatic experience. Victims may feel that they are being forced to relive painful memories or that they are being put in a vulnerable position by discussing their trauma with others. They may also feel a sense of frustration or hopelessness if they don’t feel that others can truly understand the impact that the scam had on their lives.
In some cases, victims may lash out at the people trying to help them who are asking about those painful details. This is because retelling the story can be an emotionally intense and overwhelming experience, and victims may feel triggered or overwhelmed by the process. It’s important for those working with scam victims to be sensitive to their emotions and to provide a safe and supportive environment for them to share their experiences.
It’s also important to note that each victim’s response to retelling their story will be unique, and some may find it more difficult than others.
Telling Your Story Helps To Heal Your Mind
How does facing traumatic memories help the mind to recover from the original traumatic experience? By stealing the power of those memories!
Facing traumatic memories can help the mind to recover from the original traumatic experience by allowing the person to process the event and integrate it into their life story in a way that is less distressing. Traumatic memories can be stored in the brain in a fragmented, disorganized way that makes them difficult to process and integrate into existing memory networks. By facing the memories (even if it is difficult) and actively processing them, individuals can begin to make sense of what happened and create a more coherent narrative of the event.
Telling your story of the traumatic experience can also help to desensitize individuals to the memories, reducing their emotional intensity and making them less distressing over time. This can help to alleviate symptoms of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that may be associated with the trauma.
Facing traumatic memories can also help scam victims to regain a sense of control over the event. When someone experiences trauma, they may feel helpless or powerless in the face of the overwhelming experience. By actively engaging with the memory and taking steps to process it, individuals can regain a sense of agency and empowerment, which can contribute to a greater sense of resilience and well-being.
It’s important to note that facing traumatic memories can be a difficult and challenging process, and it’s not something that should be undertaken alone. You need to be in a safe place – a professional 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. such as those provided by SCARS or a mental health professional who specializes in trauma can provide support, guidance, and evidence-based interventions to help individuals navigate the process of facing traumatic memories and recovering from the original traumatic experience.
Getting Support
It’s important for victims to seek support and guidance from mental health professionals and advocacy groups as they navigate the aftermath of the scam, such as SCARS. Mental health professionals and advocates who work with scam victims are trained to provide support and guidance in a compassionate and non-judgmental manner and can help victims work through any negative emotions or reactions that may arise during the retelling process.
If you would like to sign up for a SCARS scam victim support group please go to support.AgainstScams.org
Telling Your Story To Family & Friends
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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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SCARS Printed Books 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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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
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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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