Adult Child

Andrea Ashley
  • 4.9 (37)
  • SELF-IMPROVEMENT
  • UPDATED FORTNIGHTLY

Adult Child dives deep into the lasting effects of growing up in dysfunctional families—unpacking complex and relational trauma, codependency, toxic shame, and addiction patterns with raw vulnerability and unapologetic authenticity. Hosted by Andrea Ashley, a recovering shitshow with 17 years sober, each episode shares unfiltered insights, expert conversations, and practical tools to heal your nervous system and break free from the cycles that hold you back. Whether you’re an adult child of alcoholics or from a dysfunctional family, navigating toxic relationships, or healing your inner child, this is your no-BS space for healing. New episodes every Wednesday & Saturday. And damn the join The Shitshow Healing Community for live support groups and connection with fellow cycle breakers.

  1. The Deeper Truth About Fawning: How Survival Turns Into Self-Abandonment w/ Ingrid Clayton

    1 DAY AGO

    The Deeper Truth About Fawning: How Survival Turns Into Self-Abandonment w/ Ingrid Clayton

    Fawning isn’t people-pleasing — it’s self-erasure in the name of survival. This episode dives into the hidden trauma response behind your need to stay small and what it takes to finally come home to yourself. Dr. Ingrid Clayton is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in complex trauma and the author of Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves — and How to Find Our Way Back, a groundbreaking guide to the often-overlooked “fourth F” of trauma. In this conversation, she shares how fawning once defined her relationships, identity, and sense of safety — and how becoming a mother and confronting her own mother’s denial of abuse ultimately exposed what it costs to keep performing peace. ✨ What this episode explores: ▪️Fawning as a Hybrid Trauma Response — How it carries both fight-flight energy and freeze-collapse shutdown and becomes the body’s default for managing power, hierarchy, and perceived danger. ▪️When Fawning Means Too Much or Too Little of You — Why some survivors over-function and take up more space while others shrink to survive, and how both patterns stem from the same survival reflex. ▪️How Fawning Shows Up in Parenting — How your child’s emotions can trigger your own suppressed ones and why breaking cycles means tolerating your kid’s feelings and your own discomfort. ▪️Sexual Fawning — How early sexualization and powerlessness can wire the body to equate safety with desirability and what it takes to reclaim agency, pleasure, and self-trust. ▪️When Healing Requires Distance — What it means to stop performing safety with a parent who refuses accountability and how to grieve someone who’s still alive. ▪️Reclaiming the Self Beneath the Survival Strategy — How somatic and parts-based healing help you reconnect with the voice, truth, and body you had to abandon to stay safe. — — — ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community 6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection 👉 theshitshow.mn.co 🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATION Get the newsletter for community updates, healing insights & early access to workshops. ➡️ Join here 💁‍♀️ SUPPORT THE POD ☕ Buy Me a Coffee – help Andrea (and her cats) eat 🛍️ Shop Shitshow Merch 💬 CONNECT WITH ANDREA Instagram → @adultchildpod TikTok → @adultchildpod YouTube → @adultchildpod SPONSORS Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/adultchild Check out Calm: https://calm.com/ADULTCHILD Check out Happy Mammoth, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 15% off happymammoth.com. Check out SiderAL, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 10% off https://pharmanutra-us.com/ Check out Bioma for 15% of your order gobioma.com/adultchild Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    1h 11m
  2. SHITSHOW SATURDAY #176 - When Attachment Gets Complicated

    5 DAYS AGO

    SHITSHOW SATURDAY #176 - When Attachment Gets Complicated

    ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community 6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection 👉 theshitshow.mn.co 🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATION Get the newsletter for community updates, healing insights & early access to workshops. ➡️ Join here 💁‍♀️ SUPPORT THE POD ☕ Buy Me a Coffee – help Andrea (and her cats) eat 🛍️ Shop Shitshow Merch 💬 CONNECT WITH ANDREA Instagram → @adultchildpod TikTok → @adultchildpod YouTube → @adultchildpod SPONSORS Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/adultchild Check out Calm: https://calm.com/ADULTCHILD Check out Happy Mammoth, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 15% off happymammoth.com. Check out SiderAL, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 10% off https://pharmanutra-us.com/ Check out Bioma for 15% of your order gobioma.com/adultchild Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    31 min
  3. The Nervous System Side of Attachment: Understanding Anxiety, Avoidance & Safety Through the Body w/ Heidi Priebe

    29 OCT

    The Nervous System Side of Attachment: Understanding Anxiety, Avoidance & Safety Through the Body w/ Heidi Priebe

    You’re not needy. You’re not detached. You’re just wired for survival. This episode reveals how your nervous system learned to love — and what it takes to rewire safety. Heidi Priebe is a YouTuber, writer, and educator with a master’s degree in attachment theory who’s built a massive following for her honest, body-based approach to healing. She grew up being labeled the “difficult child,” internalizing the belief that something was wrong with her long before anyone recognized the impact of emotional neglect. Her lifelong effort to make sense of that pain led her to study how attachment and the nervous system shape the way we connect, cope, and seek safety. ✨ What this episode explores: ▪️How Attachment Lives in the Body — Why anxious and avoidant patterns aren’t personality flaws but survival strategies wired through early experiences of distress and safety. ▪️Emotional Neglect as Conditioning — How inconsistent or rejecting caregiving trains the body to either amplify emotion to be seen or shut it down to stay safe. ▪️Anxious vs. Avoidant Regulation — Why one nervous system ramps up while the other goes numb and how both are rooted in the same need for connection. ▪️Perfectionism as Avoidant Attachment in Disguise — How chronic self-criticism and the drive to “get it right” are often nervous system attempts to earn belonging. ▪️The Window of Tolerance — How to recognize when you’re inside or outside of regulation, and design your environment to stay within it more often. ▪️Healing Attachment Through the Body — Why real recovery requires nervous system work and learning to feel safe in connection, not just think differently about it. ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community 6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection 👉 theshitshow.mn.co 🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATION Get the newsletter for community updates, healing insights & early access to workshops. ➡️ Join here 💁‍♀️ SUPPORT THE POD ☕ Buy Me a Coffee – help Andrea (and her cats) eat 🛍️ Shop Shitshow Merch 💬 CONNECT WITH ANDREA Instagram → @adultchildpod TikTok → @adultchildpod YouTube → @adultchildpod SPONSORS Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/adultchild Check out Calm: https://calm.com/ADULTCHILD Check out Happy Mammoth, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 15% off happymammoth.com. Check out SiderAL, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 10% off https://pharmanutra-us.com/ Check out Bioma for 15% of your order gobioma.com/adultchild Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    1h 14m
  4. SHITSHOW SATURDAY #175 - Employment Struggle Sesh

    25 OCT

    SHITSHOW SATURDAY #175 - Employment Struggle Sesh

    ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community 6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection 👉 theshitshow.mn.co 🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATION Get the newsletter for community updates, healing insights & early access to workshops. ➡️ Join here 💁‍♀️ SUPPORT THE POD ☕ Buy Me a Coffee – help Andrea (and her cats) eat 🛍️ Shop Shitshow Merch 💬 CONNECT WITH ANDREA Instagram → @adultchildpod TikTok → @adultchildpod YouTube → @adultchildpod SPONSORS Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/adultchild Check out Calm: https://calm.com/ADULTCHILD Check out Happy Mammoth, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 15% off happymammoth.com. Check out SiderAL, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 10% off https://pharmanutra-us.com/ Check out Bioma for 15% of your order gobioma.com/adultchild Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    42 min
  5. When Relationships Become Battlefields: Tian Dayton on Relational Triggers, Inner Child Fights & Emotional Sobriety

    22 OCT

    When Relationships Become Battlefields: Tian Dayton on Relational Triggers, Inner Child Fights & Emotional Sobriety

    Every argument has an audience you can’t see — the ghosts of the past. This episode unpacks how unhealed trauma sneaks into our relationships and how to finally stop fighting the wrong person. Dr. Tian Dayton is a clinical psychologist, Senior Fellow at The Meadows, and author of 15 books including The ACoA Trauma Syndrome and Emotional Sobriety. In this conversation, she revisits the moment that changed everything — standing in her living room, locked in a fight with her husband, and realizing they weren’t two adults arguing, but two wounded children replaying their pasts. ✨ What this episode explores: ▪️The Trauma Beneath “Normal” Conflict — How seemingly small arguments can carry the emotional charge of decades-old pain the body never had permission to release. ▪️When Healing Turns Humbling — Why moments of regression often mean your system finally feels safe enough to touch what’s been frozen, not that you’re back at square one. ▪️The Myth of the “Functional” Family — Why growing up around unspoken pain or denial can be just as damaging as overt abuse - and often harder to name. ▪️Intimacy as Exposure Therapy — How relationships become the stage where our deepest attachment wounds are both triggered and given a chance to heal. ▪️The Courage to Feel, Not Fix — Why emotional sobriety isn’t about control or calm, but learning to stay present when every instinct wants to shut down. ▪️Healing as a Group Effort — How true recovery requires co-regulation, witnessing, and community - not just self-awareness or solitary work. — — — ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community 6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection 👉 theshitshow.mn.co 🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATION Get the newsletter for community updates, healing insights & early access to workshops. ➡️ Join here 💁‍♀️ SUPPORT THE POD ☕ Buy Me a Coffee – help Andrea (and her cats) eat 🛍️ Shop Shitshow Merch 💬 CONNECT WITH ANDREA Instagram → @adultchildpod TikTok → @adultchildpod YouTube → @adultchildpod SPONSORS Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/adultchild Check out Calm: https://calm.com/ADULTCHILD Check out Happy Mammoth, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 15% off happymammoth.com. Check out SiderAL, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 10% off https://pharmanutra-us.com/ Check out Bioma for 15% of your order gobioma.com/adultchild Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    1h 13m
  6. SHITSHOW SATURDAY #174 - Our First Trauma Bonds

    18 OCT

    SHITSHOW SATURDAY #174 - Our First Trauma Bonds

    ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community 6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection 👉 theshitshow.mn.co 🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATION Get the newsletter for community updates, healing insights & early access to workshops. ➡️ Join here 💁‍♀️ SUPPORT THE POD ☕ Buy Me a Coffee – help Andrea (and her cats) eat 🛍️ Shop Shitshow Merch 💬 CONNECT WITH ANDREA Instagram → @adultchildpod TikTok → @adultchildpod YouTube → @adultchildpod SPONSORS Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/adultchild Check out Calm: https://calm.com/ADULTCHILD Check out Happy Mammoth, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 15% off happymammoth.com. Check out SiderAL, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 10% off https://pharmanutra-us.com/ Check out Bioma for 15% of your order gobioma.com/adultchild Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    39 min
  7. Trauma-Bonded No More: My Journey Through Shame, Regression & Finding My Way Back

    15 OCT

    Trauma-Bonded No More: My Journey Through Shame, Regression & Finding My Way Back

    Ever wonder what happens when the host of a trauma podcast finds herself right back in the trenches? A story about what happens when healing collides with old survival patterns — and how the body can pull you back into the past, even when your mind knows better. This isn’t a “how-to.” It’s truth-telling about the gap between understanding your trauma and actually feeling safe inside your own skin. ✨ What this episode explores: Childhood relational trauma wires us for trauma bonds — When love and pain come from the same person, the nervous system fuses attachment with fear. As adults, we mistake that familiarity for connection and call it love. Healing from the neck up leaves the body stuck in the past — Insight can’t rewire survival responses. You can name every pattern and still have a body that flinches, freezes, or fawns like the child who first learned danger was love. Regression isn’t failure; it’s unfinished business surfacing — When old patterns return, it doesn’t mean you’ve backslid. It means your system finally feels safe enough to process what once overwhelmed you. The “relapse” is readiness in disguise. Trauma bonds aren’t about the other person, they’re about your body seeking familiarity — You don’t stay because you want pain; you stay because your nervous system confuses chaos and inconsistency with connection. It feels like home because it once was. Managing someone else’s dysfunction can become a lifelong neural pathway — If you grew up regulating a parent, control equals safety. As an adult, your brain lights up when chaos appears — the same highway it’s been driving your whole life. Grief is often the missing layer in recovery — You can understand and accept the past intellectually yet still carry what you never grieved. Healing deepens when the body finally mourns what it lost — safety, innocence, possibility. — — — ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community 6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection 👉 theshitshow.mn.co 🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATION Get the newsletter for community updates, healing insights & early access to workshops. ➡️ Join here 💁‍♀️ SUPPORT THE POD ☕ Buy Me a Coffee – help Andrea (and her cats) eat 🛍️ Shop Shitshow Merch 💬 CONNECT WITH ANDREA Instagram → @adultchildpod TikTok → @adultchildpod YouTube → @adultchildpod SPONSORS Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/adultchild Check out Calm: https://calm.com/ADULTCHILD Check out Happy Mammoth, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 15% off happymammoth.com. Check out SiderAL, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 10% off https://pharmanutra-us.com/ Check out Bioma for 15% of your order gobioma.com/adultchild Our Sponsors: * Check out Bioma Health and use my code ADULTCHILD for a great deal: https://gobioma.com/ADULTCHILD * Check out Calm: https://calm.com/ADULTCHILD * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code ADULTCHILD for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out PharmaNutra and use my code ADULTCHILD for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/adultchild Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    51 min
  8. SHITSHOW SATURDAY #173 - Melissa S.

    11 OCT

    SHITSHOW SATURDAY #173 - Melissa S.

    ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community 6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection 👉 theshitshow.mn.co 🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATION Get the newsletter for community updates, healing insights & early access to workshops. ➡️ Join here 💁‍♀️ SUPPORT THE POD ☕ Buy Me a Coffee – help Andrea (and her cats) eat 🛍️ Shop Shitshow Merch 💬 CONNECT WITH ANDREA Instagram → @adultchildpod TikTok → @adultchildpod YouTube → @adultchildpod SPONSORS Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/adultchild Check out Calm: https://calm.com/ADULTCHILD Check out Happy Mammoth, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 15% off happymammoth.com. Check out SiderAL, Use Code ADULTCHILD for 10% off https://pharmanutra-us.com/ Check out Bioma for 15% of your order gobioma.com/adultchild Our Sponsors: * Check out Bioma Health and use my code ADULTCHILD for a great deal: https://gobioma.com/ADULTCHILD * Check out Calm: https://calm.com/ADULTCHILD * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code ADULTCHILD for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out PharmaNutra and use my code ADULTCHILD for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/adultchild Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    51 min
See All (416)

Trailer

Hosts & Guests

4.9
out of 5
37 Ratings

About

Adult Child dives deep into the lasting effects of growing up in dysfunctional families—unpacking complex and relational trauma, codependency, toxic shame, and addiction patterns with raw vulnerability and unapologetic authenticity. Hosted by Andrea Ashley, a recovering shitshow with 17 years sober, each episode shares unfiltered insights, expert conversations, and practical tools to heal your nervous system and break free from the cycles that hold you back. Whether you’re an adult child of alcoholics or from a dysfunctional family, navigating toxic relationships, or healing your inner child, this is your no-BS space for healing. New episodes every Wednesday & Saturday. And damn the join The Shitshow Healing Community for live support groups and connection with fellow cycle breakers.

Information

  • Creator
    Andrea Ashley
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2025
  • Episodes
    416
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2021 Adult Child
  • Show Website
    Adult Child

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