Hope & The “Pig Pen” Syndrome
The SCARS Institute Magazine about Scam Victims-Survivors, Scams, Fraud & Cybercrime
- Published: 9/15/23
- Modified: 9/15/23
- Comments: 3
- Read Status:
Hope & The “Pig Pen” Syndrome – on ScamsNOW.com
A Different Take On The Happenstance Of Scams
By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc. – Originally published on RomanceScamsNOW.com September 2018 – moved and updated 2023
Was It All About Hope? For Many Scam Victims, Was Just Bad Luck That They Were Scammed?
“Shit Happens” Is The Old Saying! Sometimes it happens a lot and doesn’t stop. Is it bad luck? Did you ever think you might be making impulsive decisions? That clinging to false hope might have been one of the many root causes for what happened.
Some people believe in the Karmic Wheel, but while that may influence luck on a long-term scale, it probably is not the cause of becoming involved in a relationship scam. But hope – especially false hope, might be a real contributor.
The Cause Is What We Call The “Pig Pen Syndrome.”
“Pig-Pen” is a secondary character in the Peanuts comic strip © by Charles M. Schulz. He is best known as the little boy with a cloud of dirt that constantly follows him.
Do you always have a dark cloud over your head? At least since you were scammed?
Some scam survivors stay trapped in their victimhood and continue to make decisions impulsively, rather than taking the time to learn how to slow down and let the logical part of their mind make the decisions,
It Is All Psychological!
When something bad happens, people tend to shut down. After their first scam ends they may be in shock or desperation and fear. Either way, these are not mindsets that help to avoid additional risks and new scams.
Newer victims are poorly equipped to avoid risks, they stop taking precautions and also stop their own positive mentality. This, in turn, tends to invite more problems due to the lack of avoidance, the lack of concern, and the lack of care.
Decisions become much more emotional. Small events cause larger emotional reactions that ripple through their life, creating other larger waves, that create others and so on. Of course, the triggers come from the trauma that the victim experienced, but without support and care, they can escalate.
Each event is not dampened, but rather amplified, because the victim’s emotional state doesn’t see it as the isolated thing it is – a trigger – instead, it is all part of the “universe hates you.”
Events feel like they carry on from one into another, instead of just being momentary problems to be solved and forgotten.
Eventually, the victim’s own emotional exhaustion tends to drain the possible reactions from their life, and it can begin to separate them again, creating the opportunity for HOPE – false hope.
But HOPE is very infectious. It breeds. It is also intoxicating if scam victims let it be. That is a part of the vulnerabilities that caused the opportunity for the scam originally.
Hope is like the glass of wine people have at dinner – just one glass and they are feeling fine. Two glasses become three and four, and then they fall and break the glass and cut themself.
Some people abuse hope and live in fantasies – we call that denial, using it like a drug. Most take one glass (ok, sometimes two) but know their limit. Some never learn this or forget this while in control of the drug – meaning false hope or denial.
Once they have overdosed on hope and had terrible things happen as a result, they need to learn and understand the power of this false unrealistic hope and the magical thinking that accompanies it.
Every scam victim needs to recover from their scam. and learn the reasons why the scam happened. Learn about the many contributing factors that created their vulnerabilities that were so expertly exploited by the criminals. In other words, how to break the cycle of bad luck and the dark cloud that hangs over their head.
Recovery is about learning and adjusting their worldview, and with it getting rid of false hopes and beliefs or they will again be the “Pig Pen” out on the street living a life of misery, with that dark cloud hanging over their head.
Hope
Hope is one of those curious miracle drugs. It can help anyone find the strength they need to make it through the worst of times, but hope can also turn dark when it becomes a fantasy or becomes denial that holds back reality. And it easily leads to places where evil lives.
The answer is to be realistic in your hope. Enjoy hope with wide eyes instead of blinders! See the positives that can come from recovering after a scam happens, rather than living in and continuing to despair, holding on to false hope, and denial.
Be hopeful and not hopeless, just do not let hope control your life as it did before and during the scam!
Confirmed original by plagiarismdetector.net
SCARS Resources:
- For New Victims of Relationship Scams newvictim.AgainstScams.org
- Subscribe to SCARS Newsletter newsletter.againstscams.org
- Sign up for SCARS professional support & recovery groups, visit support.AgainstScams.org
- Find competent trauma counselors or therapists, visit counseling.AgainstScams.org
- Become a SCARS Member and get free counseling benefits, visit membership.AgainstScams.org
- Report each and every crime, learn how to at reporting.AgainstScams.org
- Learn more about Scams & Scammers at RomanceScamsNOW.com and ScamsNOW.com
- Global Cyber Alliance ACT Cybersecurity Tool Website: Actionable Cybersecurity Tools (ACT) (globalcyberalliance.org)
- Self-Help Books for Scam Victims are at shop.AgainstScams.org
- Donate to SCARS and help us help others at donate.AgainstScams.org
- Worldwide Crisis Hotlines: International Suicide Hotlines – OpenCounseling : OpenCounseling
- Campaign To End Scam Victim Blaming – 2024 (scamsnow.com)
More:
- What Really Are Vulnerabilities That Lead To Scams? (scamsnow.com)
- Magical Thinking – How Biased & Delusional Thinking Enslaves Scam Victims (scamsnow.com)
- Scam Victims And The Reactivity Loop (scamsnow.com)
- Projection And Scam Victims (scamsnow.com)
- The Psychology of Scams (romancescamsnow.com)
- Recovering From Scams (romancescamsnow.com)
- “Pig-Pen” | Peanuts Wiki | Fandom
More ScamsNOW.com Articles
Viking Funeral – Putting the Face of Your Scammer Behind You – 2026
The Battle Between Darkness and Light After the Scam Ends – 2026
The Doom and Gloom Mindset and Its Impact on Scam Victim Recovery – 2026
The Doom Cycle of Self-Sabotage in Some Scam Victims – 2026
Trauma Reminders – Reacting, Anticipating, and Doing Nothing – 2026
The Tethers in Our Life – What We Cling To Can Also Hold Us Back – 2026
The Background Signal – A Metaphor for Scam Victimization – 2026
-/ 30 /-
What do you think about this?
Please share your thoughts in a comment below!
SCARS LINKS: AgainstScams.org RomanceScamsNOW.com ContraEstafas.org ScammerPhotos.com Anyscam.com ScamsNOW.com
reporting.AgainstScams.org support.AgainstScams.org membership.AgainstScams.org donate.AgainstScams.org shop.AgainstScams.org
youtube.AgainstScams.org linkedin.AgainstScams.org facebook.AgainstScams.org
GLOSSARY SEARCH
TOPIC SEARCH
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CATEGORIES
Hope & The “Pig Pen” Syndrome
Please Leave a Comment
Please Tell Us What You Learned From This?
Commenting Is An Essential Part Of Healing
Read • Think • Write
3 Comments
Leave A Comment Cancel reply
More ScamsNOW.com Articles
I am trying to be hopeful but when I am overwhelmed, feelings of hopelessness emerge. It is surprising to me that hope can lead you astray, to an evil place, since I never thought about hope being bad. Knowing this, I will have to be more cautious with hope.
Interesting…
I never saw Pig Pen as carrying a cloud of gloom. What I saw was how Pig Pen explained his appearance to Lucy in Merry Christmas Charlie Brown. He told Lucy that he didn’t see himself as dirty or unkempt but rather carrying the soul of ancient Egypt that Pharaoh made have walked upon. But I do see the correlation in this article. I do see and have experienced how false hope can lead us astray. An example could include a gambler who continues gambling believing he is one hand or roll away from striking it big and winning all he has gambled plus more to get himself “even” again. (He can equal he/she/them. Not alluding the example equals only a male individual). I’ve learned over this year that I have MANY unhealed or unresolved traumas that amount to years of living in survival mode. It took the pandemic, my mother dying, taking my father in to live with us after he recovered from Covid, retiring and making a big move to getting a health diagnosis that knocked me to my knees. All I had was me to try to solve that diagnosis because I just couldn’t accept that I’m going to lose my mobility in the near future. I couldn’t accept it. I began to search online not realizing I was leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for the criminals. Mixed in with the medical research was reading articles about a celebrity I admire who also has insurmountable health issues. That led to the beginning of my crime. That hope that I could find something the doctors had missed and that the celebrity would mentor me, to help me turn my attitude around. Bizarre thinking. I think deep down that was my cry for help. That I was holding to an impossible hope that resulted from years of trauma, abuse, negative self image, negative thinking, a bad diagnosis and a dream (magical thinking). It was not sustainable. I see that now. At the time it became an issue two years ago I couldn’t see the obvious. I needed help. I felt persecuted and alone and definitely misunderstood. The criminals could see that and began to groom me almost immediately after making contact with me about18 months ago.
Continuous pity parties will get you nowhere. But I am hoping to have plenty of recovery celebrations.