SOTH Stepping Stones: Restoring A Healthy Sleep Pattern

by Soraya Grant

Scammers manipulate their victims' sleep patterns as a means of psychological manipulation. One of the first stepping stones on the road to recovery is getting a decent amount of sleep once again. Sleep is vital to overall mental and physical health. Restoring a healthy sleep pattern will make it easier to cope with the scam and heal.

Remove Traces of the Scam from Your Home With Special Attention to Your Bedroom

Immediately following the discovery of the scam, you deleted, ignored, and/or blocked all the scammer's accounts from all of your accounts. Repeat the process with every other web site or document that reminds you of the scam. Get rid of pictures they sent, web pages you visited because of them, lists you made because of them, even statuses from your social networking sites that are related to them. Once the computer is cleaned of all things scammer related, go over the rest of your living area,paying special attention to your sleeping area. Any teddy bears or other plush toys they sent you should be taken to the thrift store or local charity of your choice, as should any little symbols you purchased to represent the relationship that turned out to be a scam such as perfumes, night lights, statues, or posters. Include sleepwear. If you bought fancy silk pajamas to wear the first time your boyfriend or girlfriend spent the night, dig your old pajamas out of the drawer or donation box and donate the silk set. Do everything you can to remove all traces of the scam, but don't add to your own stress. Do the best you can. If you bought a whole new bed and bedroom set, it may not be possible to just haul it to the thrift store and buy a new one right now. Just make sure that anything that is kept stays behind only because you cannot afford to replace it right now, and not because you are attached to it.

Reclaim Your Evening Routine

Your body clock was reset by the scammer. You always watched a movie on DVD before bed, then crawled in and drifted off. Once the scammer began manipulating you, your routine changed to spending three hours chatting with them and going to bed an hour later. Dive back in to your DVD collection. If you still cannot sleep, do something you find relaxing with that extra time. Make sure it is something you truly find relaxing. The traditional hot bath, clean pajamas, and a cup of chamomile tea works for some people. Other people would rather play with pets, write out their schedule for the next day, or clean out a drawer. The only rule is that nothing you do can be related to the scammer; don't log on to the site where you met them, watch the television show the two of you talked about, or look at recipes you were planning to cook when you thought someone would be visiting you. Try to gradually cut back on the extra time spent awake until the evening routine you had before you ever met the scammer feels natural to you again.

Repeat the Process with Your Morning Routine

The scammer may have insisted you get up early to chat. Or maybe you got up early to get ahead on work so you could log on to chat with them in the evenings. Get up at the time you used to get up before you ever met the scammer. Resist the urge to get out of bed if you wake up at the earlier time. Even if you need to get up to use the bathroom, go back to your bed and lay back down until your normal waking time. Having a book to read, a television channel to watch, or some music to listen to as a way to keep you occupied if you do not fall back to sleep might be beneficial. Once it is time to get up, revert to the morning routine you had before you met the scammer.

Give Yourself a Relaxing Gift

Consider giving yourself a gift designed to help you sleep. If you have absolutely no money to spare, take an hour online and build yourself a folder full of relaxing images that can be saved and viewed as a slideshow on your computer. If you can spare up to five dollars, you might like a few new songs for your playlist, a scented room spray, a night light, a flameless candle, or a glass or cup in your favorite color for your nightstand. New pajamas, a new blanket or body pillow, a plush toy of your favorite animal or a teddy bear, a new sheet set, a new comforter and pillow shams, or a soothing sounds machine might be good for someone who can afford to spend a little more. Tailor this step to your own tastes. If playing video games, reading, or knitting relaxes you, get a new game, book, or materials for a project. The idea is to add something to your evening that prompts you to go to sleep.

Seek Professional Help If Needed

These steps are simple because they are ideas that proved effective for the author of this article. They are not medical or therapeutic advice from a professional. Anyone who feels they may need medication to help them sleep, experiences frightening or deeply upsetting nightmares, or simply cannot get a decent night's sleep despite taking steps to relax and restore their normal sleep pattern should visit a licensed mental health and/or medical professional.

Support Chat Room Available at Scams of the Heart

By Soraya Grant

Where do you go when you have just begun to realize the person you fell in love with online was really a scammer or group of scammers? Talking to family and friends about it may be difficult, especially at first. General purpose chat rooms are often a bit rough; many that were set up for "clean" chat are populated by people who are looking for online (and sometimes offline) hookups and affairs, people looking for an online fight, and scammers. Even quality support sites for related issues such as loneliness or anxiety might simply not have the knowledge to help you cope with your scam. The people there may mean well, they just don't fully understand what you're talking about or know what to say.

 

Scams of the Heart hosts an online support chat room for anyone who has been scammed, fears they may be talking to a scammer, or is concerned that a family member or friend is or has been the victim of an online romance scam.

Our Promises To Anyone Who Uses the Chat Room

If You Need to Talk About an Online Romance Scam, We Will Listen

We have no problem with general, off topic conversations, but if someone comes in needing to talk about online romance scams, the topic of the room immediately switches to online romance scams and stays on topic as long as the person needs to talk. It does not matter if you discovered you or someone in your life was being scammed today, three weeks ago, or four years ago. If something has come up and you need to talk about the scam, you will not be ignored, interrupted with off topic chatter, or pushed to change the subject. We will be here for you.
 

Your Scam Will Be Taken Seriously
 

Scams of the Heart members understand that an online romance scam is not a bad relationship, a cheater, or a crush that turned out to be a jerk. We understand the emotional, psychological, and often financial devastation that happens during romance scams. You will not be dismissed with "get over it" or "oh well you're better off without him" type comments here.
 

We Will Do Our Best to Keep the Common Chat Room Problems Away
 

Each chatter's ip address and location is visible to the moderators. They have already blocked ips from areas with high concentrations of scammers, such as Nigeria and Ghana, from the room, and have no problem blocking individual ip addresses from any Americans or people from other nations who enter the room and attempt to run a scam. It is further noted in several places on Scams of the Heart's main page, Squidoo page, and this site that we are not an online hookup or dating site. People who join are made aware that this is not the place to come if they are looking for someone to flirt with, hook up with, date, or marry. We also make it clear on the main page that this is not the place to come looking for a fight over religion, politics, social issues, or anything else people like to go into chat rooms and pick fights about. The atmosphere in the chat room is one of respect for other people.

We Encourage and Support Healing and Recovery
 

Joining the Scams of the Heart chat room does not doom you to be a scam victim and nothing more. You will find that you, and other members, will need to focus on the scam at different times, but we are not here to force you to forever dwell on what happened during and immediately after the scam. You will find support and encouragement as you learn to re-establish trust in yourself and other people, strengthen old offline friendships and make new friends, begin dating again, go back to work, go back to school, or dive into a hobby or interest.
 

Scams of the Heart Chat Has a "Here When You Need Us" Policy
 

There have been some very strong friendships formed in the chat room, and we have several members who come in to chat as a regular part of their week or day. At the same time, we encourage members to have additional social circles and other interests. There is no set amount of time you are required to devote to the chat room to be "accepted" and we hope you don't give up the things you love or brush off your family members or offline friends in order to come in and chat. We will not be offended if you need to come in and discuss scams and scam recovery for a while but are not interested in making new lifelong friends. Whether you spend your entire day logged into the chat room, just come in once to ask about some scam related issues, or anything in between, you will be treated with the same dignity and respect as everyone else. Friendships may form, but this is not anyone's online clique. We are here for anyone who needs us.

We Have a Confidentiality Rule

As with any quality support group, what is said in the room or learned about someone in the room stays in the room. We will not reveal the details of your scam to anyone else on any other web site, over the phone, or in any other form of communication. Each person owns what happened to them and it is entirely up to them to decide who else needs to know about it.

There Is No Hierarchy of Scams Here

At Scams of the Heart, we do not play any "I was scammed worse than you" games. Most online romance scams are based in Nigeria, Ghana, Malaysia, or a country from the former USSR. This makes them the most common, not the worst or the most important. Some online romance scams are carried out by Americans. This makes them rarer, not worse or more important. Regardless of where your scam originated, you will not be treated as less important than someone who lost more money to the scammer, spent more time believing they were in a relationship with the scammer, or spent more money on clothes, airfare, or other things to please what they believed to be their boyfriend or girlfriend than you. It does not matter if you were scammed by a Nigerian ring who tricked you into sending thousands of dollars, scammers from across your own country who tried to get you to send them new electronics as "presents," somebody across town because they just get a kick out of manipulating and hurting people online, or any other combination of details. We are all equal here.

Holidays and Grieving

December has come, time for the holiday season, it’s a time when your excited to be with your love ones, spending time with friends at Christmas parties, laughing and enjoying yourself, watching the excitement and joy when seeing the young ones open up their gifts. 

It’s a time of joy and a time for happiness, but as December approached I began feeling disconnected, grumpy, sad, overwhelmed and not wanting to participate. My excuse was that I was being cooped up inside, over stressed with work, things not going as to my plan. Then it hit me December 3rd was my scammer's birthday.  It had been a year since I met him:  he was suppose to be here by now.  I was suppose to be in a love filled relationship and excited to be spending my first holiday with him. I was supposed to wake up everyday with the knowledge he would be by my side, celebrating not just the holiday season, but our lives together, our future. 

I realized that it had been almost four months since I learned of my scam.  I thought the healing process was over, the hurdle of my devastation, my emptiness, my sorrow and grief. I looked out at the make shift grave I made of him, the ashes I buried telling him my hurt, how my heart was broken, my tears I have cried over losing him, my unconditional love I had for him, my hopes and dreams that we were to share. And when looking at that place, I realized my grief was just really starting, only in a different direction, my emptiness not filled. How was I to get thru the holiday season with the knowledge he wasn’t going to be here? How was I going to put up a good face with the knowledge that there was still a void in my heart. I felt lost I feel lost, I felt everything all over again, the pain, the anxiety, the depression. It was just another chapter in my life opening up again, only this time it was Grieving. 

I tend to think through things, if I don’t understand something I research, I try to find the answers that I seek.. How do you seek something that is no longer there? Will I ever feel happy again? Why is this happening to me? It’s just another twist of answers I seek, same as when I first found out about my scam, but now in a whole different light, it’s about coping with my grief, trying to find my happiness again.

In one way or another, we are all affected by death. Losses are inevitable and are ever present in all our lives. Death as that is what we feel after being scammed, a loss of our love one. Death is universal. Grief is universal. We all must cope with bereavement at some stage in our lives. Even though death can be separated into two categories, long-term illness and sudden death, the loss of our scammer, all death is sudden. The finality of death brings to those left behind a tremendous amount of emotional pain. Grief is not something abnormal, rather it is a normal and inevitable step in our journey through life.

Grief is defined as: 1. conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in familiar pattern or behavior. We as victims of scams have relied upon and expected our daily calls, email, words of love and endearment. 2. a normal, natural and painful emotional reaction to loss. What we feel after we have found out our one true love has deceived us is Grieving is difficult because it involves many intense feelings--love, sadness, fear, anger, relief, compassion, hate and happiness. We feel intense pain, disorganization as if drowning in a sea of painful emotions, the loneliness and emptiness is all consuming. Grieving is difficult work. We make plans for our future with them, we trust, we give our hearts and souls for them and then learn it’s all a deceiving lie. And now we are faced with the knowledge that we are back to healing, making plans for our future without them, learning to heal, learning to accept again we are worthy, we are good human beings worthy of navigating through our lives and through the journey of grief. We hope again, we balance the life we have now little by little, there is no time frame for healing we take each day for what it is and learn from it.

Death is like a great wound it leaves a scar. It may heal and the pain may ease but the mark is always there, the memories. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, we grieve in our own way, the most important thing to remember is:  the object of our love and loss is no longer where he was before, he is now only a part in which we were.

I feel each of us was put on this earth with a plan already made up for us, each sadness, each pain, each joy, each love is a our journey in life. We may not understand at this time why we go through them, but we learn from everyone of them. As I write this a very good friend of mine is not expected to live much longer. He is 91 years old, has lived a good life, knew love and gave it freely. He had losses, he had triumphs, pain, sadness and joy. When I look back through the years I have known him, he made me smile, he showed me respect, courtesy, what a true friend was. I will miss him dearly, think of him often. When one door closes another one opens, and I have found this with my new set of friends here at SOTH. We may be all different people, different cultures, beliefs. But we all share a similar bond, a similar death. We all pull together to help everyone else out no matter how little or big, it all makes a difference.

So as Christmas approaches, I won’t put on a fake smile, I won’t ignore my feelings or my pain. I will take each emotion and learn from them, accept them as they are. I won’t push myself to pretend nothing happened. What I will do is seek the enjoyment from my family, take one day at a time, seek pleasure in the happiness of my grandsons, not feel ashamed of what happened but learn from it. Yes it will be hard and at times lonely, but I will find my happiness again maybe baby steps but I will learn to walk through this life lesson.

I wish all of you at SOTH a Happy Christmas, and a better New Year to come. It will come and by next December less pain, more fulfillment, happiness and the void no longer there. -- Verna

Chatty Holidays, or Miracles in Strange Places

It was about three years ago that I first discovered that chat rooms could be miraculous places.   It started in a group very similar to ours.  They were there for me when I'd been scammed, but they didn't use their chat room.  One member of the email group mentioned that she was feeling really let down -- that she'd expected to be in this new relationship for the Christmas / New Year holidays, and now she'd be all alone. Her pain was shared by many.  We decided to meet in the chat room to keep each other company. 

I don't remember which one of us suggested it.  I do know that  it began with one single suggestion.   We are a group of women and men who had one thing in common -- we had all been scammed in one way or another.  We  met that Christmas, and shared our stories.  Before long, we were laughing together.   Sometimes our conversation was light hearted and superficial.  Other times, it was intense and personal, especially as new members found their way to the chat room and needed to share their pain and disbelief.  

Our trust in others had been damaged by faceless strangers who only pretended to love us for financial gain.  But over time, we began to trust again, slowly and surely.  As we shared our pain, our stories, we found that we were not scorned or judged.  We found others who had experienced similar situations, and could tell us how they handled their feelings and emotions, how they learned to move forward.  We encouraged each other when times were bad, and celebrated when times were good.  Most of us had families -- but this new family shared a bond that was and remains special.  

The holidays can be acutely lonely times.  It can seem that everyone else in the world has a loving family and/or children, and that we're shut out in the cold. Its also a key time for scammers to ramp up their game and promise to come home for the holidays -- and for some of us to be left waiting at the airport for a ghost as that horrible sinking feeling sets in.

Scams of the Heart will "leave the light on for ya" and greet you with caring and compassionate members who will soon become friends.  You don't have to be alone any more.  Come on and join us -- what have you got to lose besides that horrid loneliness?  www.scamsoftheheart.org   //mw

Hi all,

It's been a busy month at the SOTH email group and chat room.  I'd like to welcome 60+ new members in the past 30 days -- wow.  The scammers must be getting dumber, because you all are a very bright group.  I love, love, love the support I'm seeing you give each other. 

We've had lots of changes internally in the past month. Cindy has decided to leave the group to pursue other interests, and while she is missed, we of course wish her well.  We hope her photography ventures bring about the desired change in her life.  

Share has had some major changes in her world as well, and may not be as active as before, but she is checking in and holding her head high.  When the dust settles, she'll be back and better than ever!  What doesn't kill us really does make us stronger. 

Finally, I'd like to welcome two new moderators in training to the gang.  Shirley is our resident songstress, a founding member of SOTH, and has lots of wisdom to share with us.  I had the pleasure of meeting Denise in person in August, and while she's still a bit wet behind the ears, I have a gut feeling that she's going to be a mighty powerful advocate for our members. It won't take either one of these wonderful ladies much time to get up to speed -- i can see their lovely hands at work already.

A sneak preview into October:  it's my hope that we'll be able to welcome a mod for our "Euro's" (Our European members) soon.  Stay posted. . .

Best,
Mary W

How to Find Full Headers and Track IP Addresses in Email

Hi.  Just a brief reminder to check our Squidoo site regularly as that is where the most updates happen in information to help you learn how to be safe online from romance scams.  

The most current updates include instructions on how to find full headers and track IP addresses in emails you receive.  These instructions, along with other helpful information can be found here.

At our Squidoo site you will not only find helpful, educational information, but you will also find some fun activities to do such as taking polls.  We would really appreciate it if you would all vote on the polls.  They are completely anonymous.  

 There is also a place where you can briefly tell your story about what happened to you.  This is also completely anonymous.  

If you are on Twitter, you can join us on the Squidoo site in Twitter Storm.  

Why, you may ask, do we have all this going on at a website separate from our main chat room website?  Squidoo is a very special place online where we are able to possibly make a little money to help defray the costs of the chat website and domain name.  This is a much better method of taking care of keeping us online than to have one or two members footing the bills all the time.  How does this work?  It's simple.  There are products listed on the site that are for sale through Amazon.com and all those products are related to online dating scams.  So if you were to go to Amazon.com to buy a book about romance scams, instead of buying it directly from Amazon, you can buy it from our Squidoo site.  Squidoo itself also places ads on our site and we get a portion of all sales through those ads.  This way we get some of the profit.  It's not much, but every little bit helps. 

We also see Squidoo as a site that offers some additional fun activities.  When you visit our Squidoo site, you can also find, in addition to the previously mentioned activities, various YouTube videos showing romance scammers in action, and other romance scam videos on YouTube.  We also have some YouTube videos of some of our chat room music we like to share together.

Be sure to click the Facebook like button when you visit.  Also click the thumbs up button as both of those actions boost our points and helps us earn awards that boost our ranking in Squidoo as well as in the search engines.  One thing to know, however.  If you do click the Facebook like button, your Facebook name and profile picture will show on the Squidoo page and the link to our page will show on your wall.  Liking us does not link you to having been scammed.  It only shows that you appreciate what we are trying to do to help others.  You can also post comments on our page.  

We, at Scams of the Heart (SOTH) are family.  We want to be there for each other, and we want to be there for those who come in newly hurt by these criminals.  What we want to do with Squidoo is take the burden of the cost of our chat room off the shoulders of the one or two or three who help pay for it now.  Your regular visits help us.  Your thumbs up, your votes on the polls, the videos you watch, and especially any products you might order through our site all go toward helping us keep SOTH online.  Besides, it's fun as well as informative!  

If you have any suggestions for topics to post on the Squidoo site, please leave us a comment here, or on Squidoo, or email us at info@scamsoftheheart.org  

Thanks!

cp