This is Not One of Those Times

 

You know how we sometimes look at a difficult situation and tell ourselves, “Someday we’ll look back on this and laugh?” Well, this isn’t one of those times.

To continue reading, I would ask that you work hard to suspend the very legitimate questions of “What the heck is wrong with you? How could you be so stupid? What were you thinking?!” 

On October 5^th, there was a voicemail left at my office stating that the Cumberland County Sheriff’s office needed to speak with me on a legal matter. I returned the call on Friday the 8^th and left a message. I know several people in Cumberland County, so there was plausible reason that they might need to speak to me – especially since I am a mental health therapist.

On Monday, October 11^th, I called back and the call was answered. From that moment on, I was caught in a scam by men impersonating law enforcement. I was told there were two warrants for my arrest for charges pertaining to not showing up for jury selection and then contempt of court for not responding to the warning about not having shown up.

I want to pause here for a word about trauma and how it affects the brain. When we respond to perceived danger, our cognitive/ rational brain goes completely offline and we function exclusively from an emotional state also called the reptilian brain, in which the limbic system is activated. You may have heard of fight or flight. Well, there are two other coping responses to traumatic situations – freeze and collapse. In those moments of fight, flight, freeze or collapse, there IS NO RATIONAL THOUGHT POSSIBLE. I was immediately plunged into a frozen state. The emotions that took over?  Terror.  Desperation.  Sadness.  Fear (of making a misstep thereby worsening the situation). Concern – for people who had been trying to reach me all day and not knowing why I wasn’t answering. Guilt and Shame for what I had apparently done to break the law. Embarrassment.

 I have now labeled this ordeal A White Collar Hostage Situation as well as Coerced Identity Theft.

So, operating in a frozen state, I began to comply with the directives I was given – to save myself from arrest, felony charges, and subsequently potentially losing my means of income and other far reaching residual effects. These men knew the legal and law enforcement vernacular, gave me citation numbers to write down, etc. The following is what I can remember and a hopefully concise series of events:

1.       Do not hang up the phone. Get in your car immediately and start driving toward the Cumberland County Courthouse and I would be given directions on the way.

2.       Do not call anyone or text anyone – in fact, when I cracked open a bottle of iced tea, they admonished me again about texting or calling – stating it was illegal to do that while driving.

3.       Go to my bank and withdraw funds for bond that would allow me to enter the property without arrest, so that I could dispute the charges and remove the warrants. The bank was closed due to the national holiday so they instructed me to go to an ATM and using as many debit cards as I had, to withdraw as much cash as I could.

4.       Go to a Sheetz or Rite Aid and put the money on Green Dot MoneyPak cards – warning me to disregard the statement on the back of the card that they cannot be used for legal purposes, and also warning me to be careful about possible citizens arrest by the Sheetz employees. I was to keep the line on speaker phone as I did these transactions.

5.       Go to Walmart and make purchases of small items, one at a time and get $100 cash back with each transaction. Repeat the process with the MoneyPak cards.

6.       Continue the trip to Carlisle and go to the Carlisle Walmart to repeat the process. At various times during the trip, they changed the amounts I supposedly needed and scolded me for changing my mind about paying the full amount and agreeing to subsequent court dates. Once in Carlisle, they sent me to 3 different places to put the cash on the MoneyPak cards. By this time, my debit cards had been shut off. They said they had everything they needed on the “state side” but there was a hold up on the federal side and they were transferring my call.

7.       I was then greeted by someone claiming to be a federal marshall who told me there was an additional amount owed and that I could do so by taking my credit card back to Walmart and purchasing Apple Pay cards. I was told to “calm down” when I broke down because he “was trying to help me.”

8.       After that transaction and because my cards were all shut off, they asked for all the information in the world that any person in their rational brain knows not to give. But I was not that person in that moment. I was now 7 hours into this hostage situation – I was tired, afraid, devastated, hungry and bracing myself for spending the night in jail. When, thanks to the security features of my bank and the national holiday, they could not get any more money from my accounts, they told me to go home, and they would email documents for me to sign and scan back THAT NIGHT. I was to keep the line open so they could ask me questions as they filled out the paperwork.

In total, I spent 10 hours in this state. Often tearful, completely fearful and even at times marveling at how robotic and numb I felt. It felt surreal.

Once safely home and realizing I had been scammed, I went through the motions I needed to  - calling credit card company, calling the real Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office (who incidentally stated they knew these things were happening and really did nothing to make a report), changing usernames and passwords and shutting off my debit cards.

 This is not an easy story to tell. I still feel very stupid, embarrassed, ashamed. Every time I have to call someone to continue this process of cleaning up the mess and have to share all the info that I actually gave to the scammers and tell them the instructions that I blindly followed, it brings back all of those emotions. And I break down, all over again. I liken it to someone who has been injured by shattering glass – they tell how slivers of glass continue to come out of their skin for sometimes years to come. Every time I think of something that was said or requested, where I should have known better, there is a stabbing pain in my psyche. Another therapist with whom I shared this story said, “They deprived you of what you needed to make different choices.” And while that is some comfort, I am still prone to all of the emotions I just mentioned.

So– why am I sharing this?

First –It’s a therapeutic process. I am hoping that getting it all out on “paper” will get it out of my head so I can begin to recover.

 Second, it is a cautionary tale. Please don’t think it can’t happen to you or someone you know. I would consider myself a relatively intelligent individual who also possesses a reasonable amount of common sense, but when that moment of terror took over, I was truly robotic. Any time I had a ping of “I didn’t think this was how police matters worked,” my fear took over and I wanted to avoid any further legal implications.

Third, if you know someone who has endured a trauma, please please resist asking the questions that a rational person wants to ask. Those listed above as well as things like, “Well, why didn’t you try to stop it? What were YOU doing that contributed to the situation? Why didn’t you call someone or check the facts? Couldn’t you have just said no? Aren’t you over this by now?”

There is very real reason victims of assault, abuse and other traumas cannot recall details chronologically or completely accurately. Please don’t retraumatize them by processing the story from your cognitively engaged brain.

Remember in high school and college how you had to attend labs to see the application of the concepts? This experience has felt like a lab in neuroscience and trauma for me. I have a good bit of book learning about the impact of trauma. But this – having lived this situation drives the point home in painful and frustrating ways. Here’s what the ongoing struggle has looked like this week:

-          The sometimes overwhelming feeling of having been violated.

-          3 days lost income – 1 for the ordeal, 2 to start making reports and freezing accounts etc and 3 because I cannot complete a coherent sentence nor comprehend what is being said to me much of the time. People don’t want to talk to a therapist who can’t listen or speak.

-          Extreme exhaustion. I make one phone call or report and I feel like I can’t go on. I have periods of the collapse response noted above.

-          Episodes of nausea and weakness.

-          A headache. Probably from stress. Probably from crying. I am crying a lot. It’s starting to be fewer and further between, but I’m still crying for “no apparent reason.”

-          The reaction of family and friends reminds me that there is something much deeper and more sinister that could have happened, and I can’t even think about imagining those possibilities because I am trying to function.

-          I still can’t get a straight answer on some things from one of my banks, despite having talked to 4 different people and have gotten 2 promises for callbacks that haven’t happened. And that’s where most of my remaining money is and I cannot access it. I am waiting for a new credit card and new debit cards but can’t get them for the one bank until I open new accounts, for which I have to have an appointment and they can’t get me an appointment.

-          The scammers tried 2 more times to call me the next day- creating renewed panic.

-          I am afraid to be home alone – which is something I usually relish.

-          I am fearful every time my phone rings.

-          I am trying to keep my anger at bay because I know it doesn’t hurt anyone but me. But I know anger would be a very valid response.

-          My usual aches and pains that go with my age have been magnified the past few days. Everything hurts almost all the time.

 I do want to state for the record that the State College Police Department has been amazing. When I had to share the most painful information with the officer who met with me in person, I said, “I don’t think I could be more embarrassed and ashamed if you paraded me naked in the town square.” And he answered, “Ma’am, there would be a lot of naked people out there with you. This is happening to so many people.”

So I implore you, don’t let your loved ones or you become another victim in this evil. And please be kind to those experiencing trauma of any kind.

I truly doubt that there will be any silver linings in this. And I definitely cannot imagine looking back on this and laughing. But there are things for which I am grateful – the support of family and friends. I am thankful to have arrived home safely. And, I guess, for the first time, I am grateful that I am not a wealthy person.

Thanks for reading – please take care of yourself and those you love!