Scam Victim Recovery Insights
From the SCARS Institute
Processing Loss
Processing loss, especially deep loss, is a complex and non-linear journey that the brain and spirit undertake to reconcile a past reality with a new and unwelcome present.
When we lose a real person, the grief, while agonizing, follows a somewhat familiar path. There is a tangible reality to anchor the sorrow: a body to mourn, a funeral to attend, a headstone to visit, and a shared pool of memories with others who also knew them. These rituals and physical proofs provide a framework for the mind to begin the process of acceptance. The finality, however brutal, is verifiable. The person is gone, and the world reflects that truth back to you.
The grief from a relationship scam is a profoundly different and often more treacherous terrain. You are mourning the loss of a person who never existed, a future that was stolen, and a love that was a meticulously crafted illusion. This creates a unique and torturous form of cognitive dissonance. Your heart feels the profound attachment and the searing pain of abandonment, but your rational mind knows the person was a fiction. There is no body to mourn, no shared history with family, no closure to be found in the physical world. The relationship existed entirely in the realm of your mind, built on words and images, and its end is equally ethereal.
In some ways, this lack of physical closure can make the loss feel even more profound than a real death. With a real person, the finality is often stark and undeniable. With a scam, the ending is a ghost. The scammer simply vanishes, often blocking you and disappearing back into the anonymous digital ether. There is no final conversation, no explanation, no confrontation. You are left with a void, an unanswered question that hangs in the air. Your mind, which craves certainty and resolution, is left starving. It desperately seeks proof to satisfy its need for a neat ending, but none exists. You cannot go to a funeral and see for yourself that the person is gone; you are left to wrestle with a phantom.
This lack of proof forces the mind into a painful loop. It replays conversations, analyzes messages, and searches for the “real” person in the fiction, trying to find a point of solid ground. The absence of physical evidence makes the emotional reality feel unstable, as if it might not have been real at all. But the pain is real, and this conflict between the intensity of the emotion and the intangibility of its cause can be maddening. You are grieving a ghost with no grave, mourning a story that ended not with a period, but with an unfinished sentence, leaving you to forever wonder what might have been.
Prof. Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.
November 2025
This is but one component, one piece of the puzzle …
Understanding how the human mind is manipulated and controlled involves recognizing that the tactics employed by deceivers are multifaceted and complex. This information is just one aspect of a broader spectrum of vulnerabilities, tendencies, and techniques that permit us to be influenced and deceived. To grasp the full extent of how our minds can be influenced, it is essential to examine all the various processes and functions of our brains and minds, methods and strategies used the criminals, and our psychological tendencies (such as cognitive biases) that enable deception. Each part contributes to a larger puzzle, revealing how our perceptions and decisions can be subtly swayed. By appreciating the diverse ways in which manipulation occurs, we gain a more comprehensive understanding of the challenges we face in avoiding deception in its many forms.
“Thufir Hawat: Now, remember, the first step in avoiding a *trap* – is knowing of its existence.” — DUNE
“If you can fully understand your own mind, you can avoid any deception!” — Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.
“The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.” — Pema Chödrön
