Adult Child

Andrea Ashley
  • 4.9 (1.9K)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Biweekly

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. 2d ago

    240 - Borderline or Abandoned? What Separates a Personality Disorder From Untreated Relational Trauma w/ Susan Anderson

    The Abandonment Trauma Queen is back on the pod, and today we're heading into uncharted territory: borderline vs. abandonment trauma. What truly separates the two, and why the BPD label gets handed out way too easily. Susan Anderson is a psychotherapist and a pioneer in the field of abandonment trauma, and she's spent the last three decades helping people heal. She's the author of The Abandonment Recovery Workbook (a book that truly changed my life) and Taming Your Outer Child. Having worked with thousands of people over the course of her career, she joins me to share what she's learned about telling the difference between BPD and CPTSD. ✨ What this episode explores ▪️What Actually Separates BPD From CPTSD — Why the dividing line isn't emotional intensity, but whether the pain distorts reality into a false narrative. ▪️Why Untreated Abandonment Escalates — How emotional reactivity compounds from one relationship to the next when the wound underneath is never addressed. ▪️Overthinking as an Abandonment Response — Why compulsive rumination is your brain searching for a lost attachment object, not actually solving anything. ▪️Why the Outer Child Fights Change — How the self-sabotaging part is persistent by design and actively wants to stay in charge. ▪️Self-Love as Behavior, Not Affirmation — Why the relationship with yourself is built through concrete action and written dialogue, not by deciding to love yourself. ----------------------- 🎧 If this episode resonated, you might also love: ▪️ Ep 47 — Abandonment Trauma w/ Susan Anderson ▪️ Ep 97 — The Outer Child & Abandonment Trauma w/ Susan Anderson ▪️ Ep 161 — Abandonment Trauma Expert Susan Anderson on Rejection and Equating Love with Insecurity ----------------------- ⚓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 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    240 - Borderline or Abandoned? What Separates a Personality Disorder From Untreated Relational Trauma w/ Susan Anderson

  2. 6d ago

    SHITSHOW SATURDAY #214 – Lynda S.

    ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community 6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection 👉 theshitshow.mn.co Shitshow Saturday #127 🗞️ 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 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    SHITSHOW SATURDAY #214 – Lynda S.

  3. Jul 15

    239 - Chronically Stuck in Your Head: How Trauma-Informed Mindfulness Quiets the Overthinking Mind w/ Joe Flanders

    The voice in your head won't shut up because if it did, you'd have to feel what's in your body. Dr. Joe Flanders is a clinical psychologist based in Montreal who specializes in IFS, mindfulness, and psychedelic-assisted therapy. He's also the founder of Refuge, a community of practice built around experiential psychotherapy, and co-host of the podcast "Not Too Tight, Not Too Loose." But despite all his training and years of meditation, it was his own shortcomings as a father and desire to have a real relationship with his kids for the rest of his life that pushed Joe to do the deeper work of healing what insight alone never touched. AI in Psychotherapy: A Risk Reduction Approach to Human Flourishing ----------------------- ⚓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 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    239 - Chronically Stuck in Your Head: How Trauma-Informed Mindfulness Quiets the Overthinking Mind w/ Joe Flanders

  4. Jul 11

    SHITSHOW SATURDAY #213 – The Return of Moustache Mike

    Mike's first Shitshow episode 👉 SHITSHOW SATURDAY #127 ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community 6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection 👉 theshitshow.mn.co Shitshow Saturday #127 🗞️ 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 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    SHITSHOW SATURDAY #213 – The Return of Moustache Mike

  5. Jul 9

    238 - The Deathbed Reckoning: Facing Unhealed Trauma and Family Wounds at the End w/ Kat Courtney

    A death doula shares what really happens between a toxic parent and their child in the parent's final moments. Kat Courtney is a death doula and plant medicine facilitator who has sat with dozens of people in their final moments. After a childhood spent people-pleasing a father who only wanted the happy version of her, a near-death experience in her early twenties, and years of using ayahuasca to finally face the family wounds she'd normalized her whole life, she learned that the things we run from don't disappear - they wait. This is a conversation about what surfaces at the very end, when the body lets go and the truth we've avoided our entire lives finally has nowhere left to hide. ✨ What this episode explores: ▪️ When Repair Becomes Possible — Why for some people, truly healing a relationship with a parent only happens after they've died, and how to do it. ▪️ The Final Conversation — The apologies and accountability that can come from a dying parent, and why healing is still possible when they don't. ▪️ The Trauma You Avoided Your Entire Life— Why someone who spent their whole life avoiding their pain can suddenly confront it on their deathbed. ▪️ The Power of Ibogaine — Why this psychedelic stands out from others for treating addiction and trauma, and what the treatment process looks like. ▪️ How to Know if a Plant Medicine Facilitator Is Safe — Warning signs and specific questions to assess whether someone is truly qualified to hold this 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 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    238 - The Deathbed Reckoning: Facing Unhealed Trauma and Family Wounds at the End w/ Kat Courtney

  6. Jul 4

    Shitshow Saturday #212 - When Scarcity Fuses With Self-Worth

    ⚓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 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    Shitshow Saturday #212 - When Scarcity Fuses With Self-Worth

  7. Jul 1

    237 - Stopping The War Within: Understanding Your Patterns Through Parts w/ Britt Frank

    Everything you hate about yourself starts making sense the moment you realize you're not one person - you're a whole system trying to survive. Britt Frank is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in trauma, trained in Internal Family Systems and Somatic Experiencing. She's the author of The Science of Stuck and Align Your Mind, which translate complex trauma and parts work into language people actually understand. Britt grew up in a covertly dysfunctional family, later found herself in a cult, survived addiction and domestic violence, and came out the other side not healed, but functional. In this episode, she shares how recognizing your multiplicity -the different parts of you all trying to protect you in their own ways - becomes the key to actually changing patterns that have haunted you. ✨ What this episode explores: ▪️ Your Shadow Parts — How the parts you exiled to survive become the gifts you can't access in adulthood. ▪️ When Belonging Becomes a Trap — Why the unmet need to belong draws you into high-control systems like cults or abusive partners. ▪️ Your Inner Critic as a Scared Kid — That relentless voice in your head isn’t always bully, but a frightened part just trying to keeping you small. ▪️ Parts Work for Treating Addiction — Understanding what your addiction protects you from works where logic, love, and willpower have all failed. ▪️ Functional, Not Fixed — Why the goal is not to be healed or whole, but to understand your system well enough so you can exist within it peacefully. ----------------------- ⚓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 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    237 - Stopping The War Within: Understanding Your Patterns Through Parts w/ Britt Frank

  8. Jun 27

    Shitshow Saturday #211 - Why Asking For Help is Hard

    ⚓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 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    Shitshow Saturday #211 - Why Asking For Help is Hard
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Trailer

Hosts & Guests

4.9
out of 5
1,858 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 - 2026
  • Episodes
    485
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2021 Adult Child
  • Show Website
    Adult Child

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