Amy & Avery: Rebuilding After Life Changes — Caregiving, Self-Advocacy, and Finding Your Voice | Part 2

What happens when chronic pain doesn’t only change the person hurting — it changes the marriage, the money, the business, the caregiver, and everybody’s identity? In Part 2, G-Rex and Dirty Skittles continue their conversation with Amy and Avery Nubson about caregiver burnout, asking for help, surviving the darkest chapters of a relationship, rebuilding independence, letting go of shame, and creating a life that looks nothing like the one they originally planned.

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Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads is a 2024 People’s Choice Podcast Award Winner (Best Health), 2024 Women in Podcasting Award Winner (Best Mental Health Podcast), 2026 Podcast Tonight Award Winner (Best Mental Health Podcast), and 2026 NYC Podcast Award Audience Choice Winner (Best Hosts), with over 4.5 million downloads and listened to in over 160 countries.

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Mental Health Quote

“Doing nothing was just not an option.” — Avery Nubson

Trigger Notice + 988 Crisis Reminder

This episode includes discussion of suicidal concern, severe chronic pain, caregiver burnout, depression, medication complications, medical trauma, and significant relationship and financial stress. Please take care while listening.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis in the United States, call or text 988 or visit:
https://988lifeline.org/

For crisis resources outside the United States:
https://findahelpline.com/

Episode Description

Part 2 of Amy and Avery Nubson’s story asks a question we don’t talk about nearly enough: what happens to the caregiver when someone they love becomes consumed by pain?

Amy gets brutally honest with G-Rex and Dirty Skittles about the period when she felt like a car accident had stolen her husband, best friend, business partner, and financial security all at once. Their clients disappeared. Medical bills landed on credit cards. She became Avery’s caregiver while trying to keep their lives afloat — and eventually reached a point where she knew something had to change.

Avery shares the other side: the shame of needing help, the frustration of invisible disability, difficult treatment decisions, setbacks that sent his mental health spiraling, and the exhausting process of learning to advocate for himself. Together, they explain how pain journals helped reveal progress that was otherwise almost impossible to see.

But this episode isn’t only about surviving. It’s about becoming.

Amy found independence and her voice. Avery returned to art, creativity, illustration, and board-game design. They learned to travel differently, spend time apart without fear, ask for help, tell the truth about what they were experiencing, and stop measuring their lives against someone else’s timeline.

Twelve years after the accident, Avery says something remarkable: he feels like he is coming back better.

Keywords: caregiver burnout, chronic pain recovery, caregiver mental health, self-advocacy, men’s mental health, invisible disability, relationship resilience, asking for help, medical trauma, chronic illness marriage, emotional healing, storytelling and shame, self-discovery, pain journaling, finding your voice

Meet Our Guests — Amy & Avery Nubson

Amy Nubson turned one of the most difficult periods of her life into a mission to help other women rediscover their voices, courage, and confidence through storytelling, coaching, conferences, and her Rebrand You work. Avery Nubson is a longtime designer, marketer, illustrator, web and SEO professional whose life after a 2014 accident expanded his creative work into board-game design while giving him a deeply personal reason to speak about chronic pain, men’s pelvic health, PTSD, and the importance of refusing to give up on finding care.

Together, Amy and Avery offer two sides of the same story: the person living with pain and the person loving, supporting, and sometimes struggling beside them.

Website:
http://www.nufiremarketing.com

Amy Nubson on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amynubson-business-coach/

Avery Nubson on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/averynubson/

Avery’s Games:
https://humerusgames.com

Key Takeaways

• Chronic illness affects relationships and families, not only the person experiencing the physical symptoms.
• Caregivers need care too, and ignoring their needs can create resentment, exhaustion, isolation, and emotional collapse.
• Progress can be so gradual that you miss it unless you intentionally look backward and notice how far you’ve come.
• Asking for help is not failure. Sometimes the most useful request is incredibly simple: mow the lawn, carry the bag, sit with me, or listen.
• Independence can strengthen a relationship. Amy and Avery learned that doing things separately helped them rediscover themselves outside their roles as patient and caregiver.
• Telling the story you once hid can transform shame into connection and give somebody else permission to speak.

Actionable Items

• Write down one specific thing someone could help you with instead of waiting until you are completely overwhelmed. Make the request concrete.
• Track your progress. Whether you’re dealing with emotional healing, chronic illness, caregiving, or another long-term challenge, periodically compare where you are now with where you started.
• Put something on the calendar to look forward to — a creative project, trip, conversation, class, walk, or small experience that reminds you your life contains more than the hard thing.

Important Chapters

• 00:00:46 — Pride, Wheelchairs, and Invisible Disability
• 00:02:06 — Learning to Advocate for Yourself
• 00:05:56 — A Medical Setback Hits Mental Health Hard
• 00:09:44 — Where Do You Find the Strength to Keep Going?
• 00:10:47 — Why Avery Kept Pain Journals
• 00:12:06 — The Caregiver Story Nobody Was Asking About
• 00:14:44 — The Conversation That Changed Their Marriage
• 00:16:43 — Rebuilding Amy, Not Just Avery
• 00:18:17 — Stop Waiting for Retirement to Live
• 00:20:10 — The Moment Amy Heard Avery Laugh Again
• 00:22:19 — Creativity Comes Back Online
• 00:27:42 — “I Think I’m Coming Back Even Better”
• 00:30:23 — Turning Pain Into Art and Shame Into Story
• 00:33:52 — You Never Know What Someone Is Carrying
• 00:35:58 — Getting Lost and Learning You’ll Be Okay
• 00:39:43 — Advice to Their Younger Selves
• 00:42:19 — Asking for Help, Perfection, and Not Giving Up
• 00:44:38 — Theme Songs, Favorite Words, and a Little Fun

Closing CTA

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#MentalHealthPodcast #MentalHealthAwareness #Grex #DirtySkittles #Podmatch #CaregiverBurnout #CaregiverSupport #ChronicPain #MensMentalHealth #InvisibleDisability #PatientAdvocacy #RelationshipResilience #AskingForHelp #FindingYourVoice #SelfDiscovery #TraumaRecovery #EmotionalHealing #ChronicIllness #StorytellingHeals #MentalHealthRecovery

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If You Need Support, Reach Out

If you or someone you know is facing mental health challenges, please don’t hesitate to reach out to a crisis hotline in your area. Remember, it’s OK not to be OK—talking to someone can make all the difference.

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