This week, we're bringing you a story that feels like a gift—one of those conversations that reminds you why we do this work in the first place.
📅 This episode drops Tuesday, December 23, 2025, at 3 AM ET Carrie on Mental Health, Trauma, and Healing Through Creativity
This is a story about survival, paint, and the quiet courage it takes to rebuild yourself one brushstroke at a time.
🚗 What's Up with G-Rex & Dirty Skittles
First off, Dirty Skittles and I want to wish all of you a very Happy Holiday Season. And if you're struggling this year, please know that 988 is available 24/7 for crisis and suicide ideation here in the United States and Canada. If you're in another part of the world, please use https://www.thehelphub.co/ to find your local crisis hotline.
I'm a bit sentimental this year. It hasn't been three years since I attempted to take my life, and I am so damn proud of myself for sticking with my therapy and really testing myself, especially this year when I decided after 45 years in corporate America to go out on my own. Has it been easy? No. But what it taught me was how to be resilient, how to walk away from things that no longer serve me, how to stick to my boundaries no matter the cost, and I found a freedom that I haven't felt in 20 years.
Christmas this year looks a little different than it has in years past, and I'm okay with it. My wife and I are celebrating alone, but it's not a sad thing. We're making new traditions and new memories, and instead of getting each other presents, we're helping out the less fortunate. I have my tree out and I'm just kind of hibernating for the winter, digging into some book recommendations from Dirty Skittles and spending a ton of time with my wife.
Dirty Skittles is also getting ready for Christmas this year, and I am so damn proud of her. This has been a huge growth year for her, and every time we talk I remind her where she was this time last year and how much progress she's made. She has her tree up and her office is almost done, and I love how excited she is to finally almost be done with it. I also love how she makes me laugh at the dumbest stuff, but she gets me and my sense of humor, and I think this is the one thing that helps us keep our podcast going.
Programming Note: We're only releasing one episode this week and one episode next week (our final episode of 2025!) so that people can enjoy their holidays. We'll see you back here on Tuesday, December 30th for our year-end wrap.
What is a new tradition that you're trying out this year, or what boundary did you set that made you smile big?
Special shoutout to our guest Tabitha for letting us in on her holiday plans—she is all about family and eating and making special memories with singing Christmas Carols and the men are out messing with fireworks. It made us smile when she let us know what her plans were.
🎉 We've Been Nominated! — Christmas Day is the Last Day to Vote
We're thrilled to be nominated for Best Mental Health Podcast in the Podcast Tonight Awards—and this award is listener-driven.
We've partnered with Maavee, a wellness platform doing amazing things in mental health.
How to claim:
1️⃣ Click: https://lnk.gomaavee.com/inourheads 2️⃣ Use activation code: STG20 (required to unlock the credit) 3️⃣ Download the app and explore
🔥 Special Shout-Out to Women Supporting Women
🌟 Meet Krista Dykes
She Laughs Media is a boutique podcast booking and publicity agency dedicated to amplifying the voices of mission-driven entrepreneurs, artists, authors, and experts. With media contacts spanning top-tier national outlets and local press, we specialize in creating strategic, faith-rooted storytelling campaigns that connect clients with their ideal audiences. Founded on Proverbs 31:25 — "She laughs at the time to come" — we combine integrity, creativity, white glove service, and world-class media savvy to help clients build lasting visibility and meaningful impact.
Use this worksheet to explore how creativity can become a healing tool, how childhood experiences shape our mental health, and what it means to reclaim your story through self-expression.
🎤 Episode Spotlight: Carrie's Story
Some people heal through therapy. Some through meditation. Some through movement or music or stillness.
Carrie healed through paint.
In this deeply personal conversation, Carrie opens up about her journey through childhood trauma, mental health struggles, and the unexpected path that led her back to herself—art. She didn't set out to become an artist. She wasn't trying to heal through creativity. But somewhere along the way, picking up a brush became the thing that gave her permission to feel, to process, and to rebuild.
Carrie talks about the weight of growing up in an environment where emotions weren't safe, where survival meant staying small, and where the message "you're too much" became the soundtrack of her childhood. She shares what it's like to carry that into adulthood, to navigate relationships and mental health challenges while still trying to figure out who you are beneath all the conditioning.
And then she tells us about the moment everything shifted—when she discovered that creating something with her hands could quiet the noise in her head, when color and canvas became a language for feelings she didn't have words for, and when art stopped being a hobby and started being a lifeline.
This episode isn't just about creativity. It's about survival, self-discovery, and the courage it takes to let yourself be seen—by others, and by yourself. It's about learning that healing doesn't always look like therapy or medication or following a perfect plan. Sometimes it looks like messy paint on your hands, emotions spilling onto a canvas, and the quiet realization that you're allowed to take up space in your own life.
Carrie's story is proof that you don't need permission to heal. You just need to start.
🧩 From the Conversation
💬 The heartbeat of this episode
At the heart of this conversation is a truth many of us spend our whole lives running from: you don't have to be who they told you to be.
Carrie reminds us that healing doesn't always come wrapped in a therapist's office or a prescription bottle. Sometimes it comes through color, through brushstrokes, through the quiet act of letting yourself create without permission or perfection. And while creativity might seem like a small thing compared to the weight of trauma, it can become the thing that saves you.
This episode reframes what healing looks like. Healing isn't always linear. It isn't always loud. Sometimes it's messy paint on your hands, emotions you can't name spilling onto a canvas, and the slow realization that you're allowed to take up space in your own life.
Carrie also names something many of us carry silently—the belief that we're too much, too broken, too damaged to deserve good things. The exhaustion of shrinking yourself to fit into spaces that were never meant for you. The years spent performing for love that never came. And she reminds us that creativity isn't just about making art—it's about reclaiming the parts of yourself that trauma tried to erase.
This conversation makes space for both truths: you can honor where you've been and still choose to become someone new.
🫂 A quote that stuck with us
"Art gave me permission to feel everything I'd been running from—and then it gave me a way out." — Carrie
🎙️ Real Talk from Us
"When Carrie talked about how childhood shapes the stories we tell ourselves, that hit me right in the chest. I've spent years unlearning the belief that I'm not enough. Hearing her say that creativity helped her rebuild herself reminded me that healing doesn't have to look perfect—it just has to be yours." — G-Rex
"This episode reminded me that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let yourself be seen. Not the version you think people want—the real, messy, still-healing version. And Carrie is proof that you can rise from the hardest places." — Dirty Skittles
📓 Reflection Prompts to Sit With
What emotions have you been avoiding that might need to be felt?
How do you respond when you're hurting—with self-compassion or self-criticism?
What would it look like to rebuild yourself in a way that honors who you truly are, not who you were told to be?
In carrying the weight of your past, where have you quietly disappeared from your own life?
🌱 Gentle Reminder
You are not broken because you're still healing. You are not too much for taking up space. And rebuilding yourself doesn't require permission—it just requires you showing up, one small act of courage at a time.
👤 Meet Our Guest — Carrie
Carrie is an artist, mental health advocate, and living proof that creativity can save your life.
Her journey didn't start with a plan to become an artist or a healer. It started with survival—navigating a childhood marked by emotional neglect and trauma, learning to stay quiet to stay safe, and carrying the weight of "not enough" into her adult life. For years, Carrie struggled with her mental health, searching for ways to manage the depression, anxiety, and unresolved pain that seemed to follow her everywhere.
Then she picked up a paintbrush.
What began as an experiment became a lifeline. Art gave Carrie permission to feel without words, to process emotions she'd been taught to suppress, and to reclaim a sense of self she'd lost somewhere along the way. Through color, texture, and creative expression, she began to rebuild—not into who she thought she should be, but into who she truly was underneath all the conditioning.
Today, Carrie uses her art and her story to help others understand that healing doesn't have to look a certain way. It doesn't require perfection, a degree, or even a clear path forward. Sometimes it just requires showing up for yourself, one small act of courage at a time.
Her work is raw, honest, and deeply human. It's a reflection of everything she's survived and everything she's become—proof that trauma doesn't get the final word, and that you can rise from the hardest places with creativity, compassion, and hope.
🌟 Key Takeaways
Creativity can be a powerful tool for mental health healing
Childhood trauma shapes how we see ourselves, but it doesn't define us
Healing doesn't follow a linear path, and that's okay
You're allowed to take up space in your own life
Art isn't just for artists—it's for anyone who needs to feel and process
Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let yourself be seen
💪 Actionable Steps
1️⃣ Try a creative outlet this week—paint, write, draw, dance, anything that lets you express without words 2️⃣ Identify one belief about yourself that came from someone else's voice, not your own 3️⃣ Set a boundary around how much emotional labor you carry for others 4️⃣ Journal about a part of yourself you've been hiding 5️⃣ Reach out to someone who makes you feel safe being yourself 6️⃣ Give yourself permission to heal imperfectly
💬 Listener Engagement
What part of Carrie's story resonated with you? Have you ever found healing through creativity?
Reply to this email or tag us on Instagram @grex_and_dirtyskittles with your reflections. We read every message—always.
⭐ Subscribe, Rate & Review
If Carrie's story moved you, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple or Spotify. Your words help others find the stories that might change their lives.
❤️ Closing Remarks
Three years ago, on Christmas Day 2022, I made a phone call that saved my life.
I called 988.
And I'm sitting here today, writing this to you, because I chose to reach out when I had nothing left. Because someone on the other end of that line helped me believe I was worth one more breath. One more hour. One more day.
If you told me then that three years later I'd be running my own business, that I'd have left corporate America after 45 years, that I'd be setting boundaries that actually protect my peace, that I'd be building a life I'm genuinely proud of—I wouldn't have believed you. I couldn't have imagined it. I was too deep in the dark to see any light.
But here I am.
And I need you to hear this: I am so damn grateful.
Grateful for the people who stood beside me when I couldn't stand on my own. Grateful for the friends who picked me up when I had no strength left to pick myself up. Grateful for my wife, for Dirty Skittles, for my therapist, for every single person who refused to let me disappear. Grateful for the hard days that taught me resilience. Grateful for the boundaries I learned to set. Grateful for the freedom I found on the other side of fear.
And grateful—so deeply grateful—for every single one of you who listens to this podcast, who shares your story, who keeps showing up even when it's hard.
If you're struggling this holiday season, please know you're not alone. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 in the U.S. and Canada. If you're outside North America, visit https://www.thehelphub.co/ to find your local crisis hotline.
That call might feel impossible right now. But it could also be the beginning of everything.
You matter. Your story matters. And we're so damn glad you're here.
Whatever this season holds for you—joy, grief, hope, or something in between—we're walking it with you. Always.
We'll see you next Tuesday for our final episode of 2025.
With so much love and gratitude, G-Rex & Dirty Skittles Changing the way we talk about mental health, one real convo at a time.
G-Rex & Dirty Skittles
It's ok to be not ok, just make sure you're talking to someone
