April 29, 2022

With Kibby McMahon & Jacqueline Trumbull: What to Know About Dating Someone Who's Struggling with Mental Health

42 minutes

Marni welcomes the hosts of the mental health podcast, A Little Help for Our Friends, Jaqueline Trumbull, and Kibby McMahon. Jaqueline is a member of Bachelor Nation, a Ph. D. student at Duke, who studies how interpersonal functioning is impacted by personality, and shame, and contempt. Kibby is a Clinical Psychologist and a Yogi whose passion is in helping people connect more deeply with themselves and others.

Key takeaways from this episode:

Why we do what we do
Changing our narrative
Managing emotions
The importance of trying something new in dating
Applying a growth mindset to life

How Jaqueline & Kibby Came Together [5:01]

Jaqueline and Kibby met at Duke University. They discovered they had stimulating conversations together. Jaqueline had been on the Bachelor which created a bit of a social media following. The duo decided to create a podcast to use their power for good. The podcast, A Little Help for Our Friends, focused on the mental health sphere of people who were suffering collateral damage from mental health issues and personality disorders.

Why We Do What We Do [8:32]

The love we receive as a child becomes our narrative for what love should look like. It can create definitive schemas, which are the way we perceive ourselves in the world. It may be that we develop a schema that we don’t deserve love or that we are not important in a relationship. As we grow older and get into relationships, we attract people who make us feel like love made us feel when we were smaller. We stay in the pattern until we change it and we play out stories that don’t feel resolved.

The love you received as a child becomes your narrative for what love looks like in your life going forward.

Our identities are flexible and can change over time. We have a choice in the identity we want to take on. Some people are afraid of what change will look like for them. We can change without destabilizing ourselves.

Becoming Emotionally Bonded & Regulating Emotions [19:15]

Marni asks the co-hosts of A Little Help for Our Friends what contributes to our emotional bonding. At certain times in our lives, we may emotionally bond with people who fill certain needs even though they may not be suitable for long-term commitments. It’s important to ask ourselves what the relationship is serving. If it fills an unmet need from childhood it may not last.

Happiness and living a meaningful life are living in accordance with our values. But, to know our values we have to dig deep into what we want for ourselves. Emotions make us do things that may not be aligned with our values. Negative emotions aren't bad, they just direct us to do certain things.

Inaction is a choice.

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