Adult Child

Andrea Ashley

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. 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
  2. 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
  3. Jun 24

    236 - The ADHD Nervous System: Rewiring What Your Body Needs to Actually Function w/ Kristen Carder

    The thing you've been medicating is the same thing your parents shamed you for. Kristen Carder is the host of the I Have ADHD podcast and a dually certified coach who's back on the pod today to take the ADHD and complex PTSD connection deeper — through the lens of your nervous system and what it actually needs to function. She talks openly about how medication wasn't fixing her, it was translating what her body had been trying to tell her all along, and how the shame she inherited about her own wiring became the hardest part to undo. This conversation is about what happens when you stop fighting how you're built and start designing a life that actually works with your nervous system instead of against it. ✨ What this episode explores: ▪️ What Medication Actually Does (And What It Doesn't) — Why medication isn't fixing you; it's translating what your nervous system's been trying to tell you all along, and why that distinction changes everything. ▪️ Why You Regulate Differently Than They Do — How ADHD nervous systems need completely different things to reach calm than what every productivity expert and well-meaning friend has told you to try. ▪️ The Performance Cost of Living in a Neurotypical World — Why masking your brain's actual operating system to fit someone else's expectations exhausts you faster than the ADHD itself. ▪️ How ADHD and Complex PTSD Show Up Identically in Relationships — Why the way ADHD impacts intimacy, trust, and connection mirrors relational trauma responses so closely that somatic healing works for both. ▪️ Why Forcing Focus Is Just Another Form of Self-Abandonment — How the constant battle to be "normal" recreates the same disconnection from yourself that traumatized nervous systems are already surviving. Pre-order Kristen's upcoming book, You're Not in Trouble, coming October 2026. ----------------------- 🎧 If this episode resonated, you might also love: Ep 110 | Childhood Trauma & ADHD w/ Kristen Carder Ep 170 | The Intersection of Trauma, ADHD and Toxic Family Dynamics w/ Kristen Carder — — — ⚓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

    236 - The ADHD Nervous System: Rewiring What Your Body Needs to Actually Function w/ Kristen Carder
4.9
out of 5
1,856 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.

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