Hello, hello, and welcome to In the Rising Podcast. My name is Bettina Brown, and this is the platform from which I talk to you about living a life without the captivity of guilt and regret, so that you can use your self-worth to live an empowered, independent, and beautiful. I start off every session by saying that I am not a licensed counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, but I am a student of life and healthcare professional who loves to research and communicate and figure out what makes us tick.

So, if this topic or similar topics are of interest to you, go ahead and subscribe. Every Tuesday, a new episode will be released, so we hear descriptions such. You have your head in the clouds or you need to get grounded. What about though, if that cloud is on the ground, then we have a new term called fog, and this fog can be very light where you can still see around.

You may not be ideal conditions, but not inherently unsafe. However, there is also a very dense, thick fog where you cannot even see your hand in front of your face. What about if this fog isn't real at all, but the consequence of the circumstances that you're in, especially from an emotional standpoint, what does it really mean to be in a fog?

Well, I've mentioned Dana Morningstar before, and she's the author of Out of the Fog, moving from confusion to Clarity after narcissistic. Reading about narcissistic abuse, I have heard this term coined several, several times, and FOG stands for fear, obligation, and guilt. But what does that even mean? Fear, obligation, and guilt are what people with narcissistic behavior use to keep the object of their attention.

Notice I said, object of their attention, not the person they love or care about or want to be with. You are an object to this person. That you are supposed to remain in fear and obligation and guilty, and feel guilty for not making this person feel special, and this feeling has to be all the time. Now, I like to feel special when I get flowers from someone or a gift from someone, or a special card or a special note, a phone call, just saying something nice.

It does make me feel special. I'm sure you're the same. But my need to feel special is not minute to minute, to minute to minute, to minute to minute, because that person who's needing to give that gets exhausted. So there are many types of this special fulfillment that people will require. Are you making them feel financially taken care of by opening your wallet and basically attending to all of their wants and.

And while you're doing this, you start to pick up on the fact that anything they want desire fantasize about is equivalent in their mind to being a need. They want to have a bigger house and brand new furniture, and a brand new car. But it can't just be a bigger house. It has to be the biggest house on the block with the biggest yard and the most bedrooms and more toilets than there are people even in the house.

And the furniture can dare not come from a regular furniture store or even at a discount store. It has to come from the most expensive furniture store. The new car cannot just be new, but have all the bells and whistles. , you know, only be there for about a year or two because then they need another new car.

With all the bells and whistles, vacations, vacations have to be grand. So that the perfect social media posts can be, you know, put out there on the universe and, and just for everyone to see, and they have to feel as, everything in their life has to be reward. So according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health fifth Edition, commonly called the DSM or DSM five, people have to have certain qualifications to even be diagnosed as having the personality disorder of narcissism.

Basically, this behavior has to happen in many different situations. Be consistent. be problematic, that it affects them themselves, but also other people. And this requires this person to have an exaggerated sense of self importance. And self-importance is a important, I mean, that's what this entire podcast is about, but exaggerated, exaggerated, self-importance, a sense of entitlement, unquestionable.

with all of their expectations from whoever and taking advantage of others to get what they want while still being arrogant in behavior, and they are just unable or unwilling to recognize needs and feelings of other people. Now, just because a person has not been clinically diagnosed with what I just went through, that does not mean.

They may not have these tendencies, but this is a way of you recognizing what this is. And I will say that exploitation, manipulation, coercion, a lack of concern for other people, et cetera, is part of the human condition. I mean, all of us have these traits. I myself have these traits. I've expressed them, but the trait themselves isn't the problem.

And it's. problematic. It's the frequency and the capacity to which these are demonstrated, cuz we're still all people, but the consistency and the capacity is the difference. And the bottom line is if the problem is so severe that it's a problem for you. And it just doesn't matter if it's not important for the person who's the narcissist or not, it's important to.

but you have to know what to recognize. Right? So on the receiving end of a lot of this narcissistic, we call it abuse because that's exactly what it is. People often tell me, and I know I have said all of these things, , I feel like I wasn't enough. I could just never make them happy. I always said the wrong thing, always wore the wrong thing.

I always knew I would be punished publicly for not saying a certain thing or not having a certain opinion. I found myself in this situation many, many times and this is not us in re in relationships such as partners, but this can also happen at. . This can also happen in friendships. It can also happen in intimate relationships.

So, if you feel you have no power or control in the relationship or the circumstance, or even over yourself because of the needs, the never ending needs of another person, red flags waving everywhere. Full force, red flags, huge flags, 50 mile an hour winds just fluttering out. So often we feel. and we tend to be really codependent, but we feel that in this kind of relationship, all we have to do is fix the other person.

We want them to really understand and see how we were made to feel, and, and maybe with enough explanation, with, with enough love, we can change that person's perspective on their own behavior. , we can really make them change. Or we'll go to therapy and we'll sit down, we'll do family therapy, we'll do couples therapy and we'll explain this all to the counselor.

But what ends up happening is that we are getting re-victimized because that other person has to want to fix themselves. And if they don't see their behavior as a problem, and why would it be a problem if everything's going their way. But if they don't see that as a problem, that does not leave any space for you to grow.

It also leaves no space for you, period. Cause you're an object. You're not even a person in that way. So one of the main ways that people use other people to, or use situations to remain in control is the use of fear, obligation, and guilt. And I'm gonna talk about that. . And so that use of fear is often the fear of being abandoned and leaving you completely alone goes against one of the basic needs that we have as human beings, and that's the feeling of belonging.

One person always has the feeling of of wanting to belong. , you know, to a family, to an organization, a culture a, a country, a cause to feel that you'll be s shunt or sent away to exile from that person is bringing fear into you. . I will also say that sometimes having your finances taken from you is, is fear.

And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's the person, the narcissist making all the money and you don't really have any or control. You can even be the one that's making money. And they're using the money because money is equivalent to power, right? It gives you the power to barter. You know, I want to.

Groceries. I want to buy clothes. I, I can do that because I have money. If I can't do that, if I can't eat certain things, if I can't get my hair done, if I can't have basic needs taken care of, cause I don't have any money, I don't have any control. And so that leads to more fear. And if fear culture does not lead to actually positive move.

people are afraid to not to move. You can have that fight or flight, which is productive in the short term, but when we're talking about long-term use, this is not beneficial to you as a person. And if you are discarded and removed, then you have the fear that you'll never be able to get back to this person who's exhibiting narcissistic behavior.

You can be pushed aside or placed displaced. Then that person wants more of what you have to give and they let you back in. And then you have this huge fear that this abandonment may happen again. So you give and you, you do all these things again for fear. It might happen again. And then sure enough, there you go.

You're back in your fight or flight and you're just living in fear. You're not even. Living or walking on eggshells like you're living in an eggshell that's just going downhill and can crack at any moment. The next state that's pretty common is obligation. The obligation is never towards you, though there's never obligation to treat you with respect, give you kind words, affection and demonstrate love, not just saying that they love you.

And I also feel that this is why we tend to say we. Things or love people, but it just doesn't, I don't feel like the word love means as much as it used to. I remember when I was growing up that even saying other words, like friend meant something that when someone was your friend, you would go to bat for them.

You would stand up for them, help them with anything they needed help to. And we, I was older, you know, if I, I only lent my car to friends. Those are basically the same people I would give a kidney to. And, and it, it meant so much. And now, , everybody's friends. Everybody's just a friend, and then the term friend doesn't mean anything, and I feel that's similar to how love is.

So when you remain obligated to someone that you love, but someone that just verbalizes love to you, but does not demonstrate love back to you, then you are really self-sacrificing and demonstrating compassion, empathy for someone that sees you as an object. Obligation. To someone that says they love you but doesn't is very one-sided and very emotionally destructive for you.

You are obligated to remain and maintain the wealth and self-interest of another human being above everything else, every single moment of your life. Where's the love in that reminds me of the. . Well, love ain't . That ain't love. I don't know what it is, but I know what it ain't, you know? And so the final one is guilt.

The guilt of not remaining in your place for fear of another person, giving you negative comments and action, silent treatment, making you, or wanting you to feel guilty for wanting to feel like a valued human. , sometimes it's not even that you wanna feel like a valued human being, but that you even wanna feel like a human being at all.

And a lot of this happens because when you're the recipient of this narcissistic abuse, you really have this belief in commitment to this situation above all costs. And this is really, really, really prevalent in marriage. And we talk about till death do you part, and a lot of religion's like, oh, you can never divorce, you know, and if you.

can never have communion again. Like this is this awful thing that, that the circumstance is above you as a person and, and I don't, I don't believe that. I don't believe that because I also don't believe that we should be dead while we are still alive. That in these moments, if we don't have a deal breaker mentality, we can continue to be abused.

Laughed at and scoffed at, manipulated and berated and cheated on and stolen on and stolen from. Also, we can benefit some other person. I just don't believe in that. So we definitely can feel compassion for another person, especially when we know, okay, well they had this happen in their childhood, or this happened in their family.

They are experiencing certain things, but you cannot minimize or deny what's going. sometimes more patience and more rehab and more religion is just not what's gonna happen if you, you have to make that decision to make a positive impact for yourself. So if you find yourself in this fog, realize this, like, I did not come up with this term.

And, I really, really do like it because it's, it's makes it all make. . I have heard that sometimes we believe we are in relationships, but we are not. We are actually in situation ships and there is a definite difference. A relationship is a relation, there is an understanding, there is a bond, right? And these are my relations.

These are kin, these are this. There's, there's a connection. There's a, a respect. a situation doesn't have to give you anything. You can have a really great situation of, of having a, a raise at work or a really situation where you had all green lights on the way to the store, but that hasn't really added any value to your life.

It's just the situation. There's nothing of depth. There's nothing human about that. So when we recognize that we're in this situation, situation. , there is only one person that can really make a difference, and that is us. We are not responsible for other human beings and that includes our children. We can, we can definitely motivate and inspire and encourage and be there.

Gosh, I've had, I've had that there decades of my life in different capacities, but decades of my life and I plan on being for my son there decades of his life. , but I am still not in control and ultimately responsible for anyone else but myself. And to live in fear, obligation, and guilt is to live outside of our purpose and outside of our calling because we have all been given gifts to remain in purpose and remain in calling.

And I don't think we should afford any one person or any multiple people. The option of giving up our purpose and our calling while we're here. So I thank you for your time. I appreciate cuz all of our time is valuable. I hope you found this episode valuable and if you did, I'd appreciate a review. You can also drop a line by emailing me and I will see you guys next Tuesday.

Let's keep building one another up.