It is an experience that many victims who have been through it have described as being worse than a nightmare.
Although they never bargained for the romance scam when they began to look for a date online, yet when the romance scam happened, they didn't imagine that the experience would be so horrible as it later turned out to be.
Some victims told me that they couldn't sleep at night for days afterwards.
Rather, they would cry their eyes out on their bed.They let me know that they would wish that the whole incidence was a dream and that it would just go away.
But it never did.
The experience stayed with them for a while before they got over it. And many others who use the internet all over the Western world are still going through the same experience till date.
From my interactions, counseling sessions and experiences with many victims of the scams, here are some tips to use in getting over this scam:
1. Do not keep what happened to you secret: Find someone to talk to about what happened. Don't keep your experience a secret just because you want to avoid being embarrassed or being ashamed.
It always helps to find someone whom you trust totally to confide in about what happened to you.
It is best to look for someone who will not condemn you for what happened. At the time it hits you that you have been scammed, you do not need a judge or a critic.
You need someone on whose shoulders you can cry on, someone who o can just listen to you, without making you feel guilty.
Look for such a person and talk to the person about what happened to you. It helps a lot to do this.
2.Avoid blaming yourself: blaming yourself won't help matters at all. By engaging in the blame game, you would only be complicating matters for yourself.
It won't help you to heal fast, but will only hurt you the more emotionally.You need to break free from blaming yourself, or from being held down by the victim mentality.
You can't get over the experience if you keep blaming yourself. No matter what you did wrong, you need to avoid blaming yourself .
The time after the romance scam is not the time to look for whom to blame. What you need to do is to get over it first.
3.Look for professional help where necessary: if you can't handle the experience alone, or with the person you shared with, then you need to see a professional counselor or minister to help you out.
In some cases of the romance scams, especially those in which the love affair had been going on for long before the scam took place, it might be better to seek professional help in addition to other sources of help.
This is due to the fact that such victims are often unwilling to let go of what to them seemed real and are too taken in by the illusion that they were in love with.
Their reluctance to let go of the experience could actually be a problem to them, and as such, they will need professional help to get over the experience.
Also, people who have experienced cases of depression due to the romance scam are advised to seek medical help.
