Episode 4: The Shame of Silence
In the days after James disappeared, the silence was louder than any heartbreak I’d ever known.
I stopped going out. Stopped answering calls. I even skipped two shifts at work—a first in my 18-year nursing career. I didn’t want to explain what happened. I didn’t want anyone to know. Because deep down, I felt like I had let this happen to myself.
Me. A 47-year-old professional woman. A mother. A woman who’s counseled patients through trauma and held hands in the ICU as lives slipped away.
How could I, of all people, fall for something like this?
But that’s the cruel magic of romance scams.
They’re not about intelligence. They’re about vulnerability.
And in that vulnerable space—where you crave connection more than anything—they spin lies that feel like salvation.
I started deleting things.
His messages. Our photos. Even the voice notes he sent every night.
But I paused at the last one.
His final message before the mask slipped. His voice still soft, still sweet:
“Baby, once this is over, I’m coming home to you. I promise.”
That promise—it wasn’t just a lie. It was a weapon.
A weapon used to manipulate a woman who simply wanted to love again.
Breaking the Silence
Michelle encouraged me to talk to someone, so I reached out to a support group online: RomanceScamsSurvivors.org.
At first, I just read through the forums. Story after story. Women from Michigan, California, the UK, Canada. All different ages, professions, lives. All with one thing in common—they were emotionally destroyed by someone they never met in person.
Reading their words was like reading my own thoughts.
After a few days, I posted my story. I titled it:
“He Said I Was His Queen. Then He Took Everything.”
Within hours, I had dozens of replies:
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“Me too.”
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“Your story is just like mine.”
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“Don’t blame yourself. These scammers are trained manipulators.”
And slowly, piece by piece, the shame began to crack.
Reclaiming My Voice
That weekend, I sat down at my kitchen table, laptop open, and started writing the full story. Not for sympathy—but for clarity. For closure. And maybe, just maybe, for someone else out there sitting in the dark, feeling as stupid and broken as I did.
I titled it:
“How I Was Hacked by My Online Lover: A Cautionary Tale of Crypto Romance Fraud.”
I made sure to include all the keywords:
crypto scam, romance fraud, online love scam, Nigerian Yahoo boys, emotional manipulation, women in online dating, Facebook Dating scam, Solana crypto scam, real love fraud story.
And then I hit publish.
To my surprise, the story went viral on a few forums and Facebook groups for women over 40. Women wrote me emails, DMs, even called me brave. But I didn’t feel brave. I felt bruised. But being seen… that helped.
Even the local news in Columbus reached out and asked to interview me.
They titled their story:
“From Love to Loss: How a Columbus Nurse Was Scammed Out of $14,000 by Her Online ‘Lover’.”
It wasn’t easy to be so exposed, but it gave me purpose.
If I could stop even one woman from falling into the same trap, then maybe it was worth it.
Steps Toward Healing
I started therapy.
Not just for the scam—but for the years of loneliness and unmet needs that made me such an easy target in the first place.
My therapist helped me unpack the emotional manipulation, the gaslighting, the way these scammers mirror your feelings to create a fake connection. She called it “emotional phishing.” And like a virus, it infects everything.
But with time—and honesty—I started to heal.
I also froze my accounts. Changed my passwords. Signed up for identity theft protection. And I joined a local community group for scam victims that meets once a month.
I was no longer alone.
