Podcast
Adult Child
Hosted by Andrea Ashley · EN
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.
91episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
236 - The ADHD Nervous System: Rewiring What Your Body Needs to Actually Function w/ Kristen Carder
3d ago01:04:21Tap to summarize🚨ONLY A FEW SPOTS LEFT 👉 Safe Within: a 7 week somatic course to find SELF energy. Starts July 1st-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 CarderEp 170 | The Intersection of Trauma, ADHD and Toxic Family Dynamics w/ Kristen Carder— — —⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection👉 theshitshow.mn.co🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATIONGet 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 ANDREAInstagram → @adultchildpodTikTok → @adultchildpodYouTube → @adultchildpodAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Shitshow Saturday #210 - Why We Struggle Socially
1w ago00:27:15Tap to summarize✨ GRAB YOUR DAMN SPOT — Safe Within: a 7-week live somatic healing journey to Self energy. We start July 1st at 8:30 pm ET (replays made available within 24 hours of the session)⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection👉 theshitshow.mn.co🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATIONGet 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 ANDREAInstagram → @adultchildpodTikTok → @adultchildpodYouTube → @adultchildpodAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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235 - The Obligation Myth: What You Owe the Parent Who Hurt You w/ Lisa Stinson
1w ago01:05:55Tap to summarize✨ GRAB YOUR SPOT — Safe Within: 7-week live somatic healing journey to SELF energy. Starts July 1st.--When your inner child says don't be selfish, your inner teen says we don't owe them shit, and your true self asks what we can live with.Lisa D. Stinson, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, former Navy psychologist, and trauma specialist with over twenty years treating survivors of narcissistic family systems. She grew up the family scapegoat to a narcissistic mother and an enabling father, left home at seventeen, and has spent her life since at a deliberate distance from the people who raised her. Her newly published book, The Obligation Myth, explores the question almost no one prepares you for: what you actually owe the parent who hurt you once they're the one who needs help — and how to answer it in a way you can live with long after they're gone.✨ What this episode explores:▪️Why Caregiving Reactivates Your Childhood Role — The unique challenges an aging parent triggers in the scapegoat, the invisible child, and the golden child.▪️When Every Part of You Wants Something Different — How to honor the conflicting voices an aging parent stirs up without letting any single one decide how you show up.▪️Competent Caregiving Without the Emotional Investment — Why you can meet a difficult parent's practical needs without handing back the self you rebuilt.▪️Why Going No Contact Isn't One Size Fits All — How estrangement can be permanent or something you move in and out of, and why neither is the wrong answer.▪️The Deathbed Conversation That Backfires — Why the forgiveness or confrontation you keep rehearsing can leave you more wounded than silence would.▪️Becoming the Protector You Never Had — Why the grief of what you never got eases once you fiercely protect your younger self the way no one did back then.Lisa's Substack-----------------------🎧 If this episode resonated, you might also love:Ep 140 | Healing from Emotionally Immature Parents: Grief Behind Anger w/ Morgan PommelsEp 139 | The Power of Reparenting Your Inner Family w/ Barb NangleEp 90 | Family Scapegoat Abuse w/ Rebecca Mandeville— — —⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection👉 theshitshow.mn.co🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATIONGet 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 ANDREAInstagram → @adultchildpodTikTok → @adultchildpodYouTube → @adultchildpodAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Shitshow Saturday #209 - Ana S.
2w ago00:23:40Tap to summarize✨ NEW COURSE — Safe Within: a 7-week live somatic healing journey to Self energy. Starts July 1st.Grab your spot!⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection👉 theshitshow.mn.co🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATIONGet 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 ANDREAInstagram → @adultchildpodTikTok → @adultchildpodYouTube → @adultchildpodAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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234 - Wired for Abandonment: How Somatic Work Heals What Talk Therapy Can't w/ Valerie Rubin
2w ago01:01:31Tap to summarize✨ NEW COURSE — Safe Within: 7-week live somatic healing journey to SELF energy. Starts July 1st.--Your childhood taught your body that love means waiting to be left. No amount of insight changes that.Val Rubin is a trauma-informed somatic coach and host of the Anxiety Recovery Podcast who specializes in healing the fear of abandonment through the nervous system rather than the mind — and she's speaking from the inside out. For six years she lived with chronic pain that every doctor missed, until hypnotherapy resolved it in months and set her on a path that eventually ran straight through her own trauma bond. This conversation is about what it actually takes to change when you already understand yourself.✨ What this episode explores:▪️ Why Your Gut Reads Danger Before Your Brain Does — How your nervous system builds a subconscious safety database in childhood that keeps running your adult relationships on autopilot.▪️ Why Unavailable People Feel Like Home — How your nervous system built its definition of love around someone who couldn't give it, and why that template outlasts every therapist you've ever had.▪️ Chronic Pain as Stored Emotion — How unprocessed emotional pain migrates into the body as physical symptoms when there's nowhere else for it to go.▪️ The Trauma Bond Withdrawal — What your nervous system goes through when you leave a toxic relationship, and why it has nothing to do with willpower.▪️ Building Secure Attachment From Within — How somatic healing retrains the nervous system to generate the sense of safety that relationships keep failing to provide.-----------------------🎧 If this episode resonated, you might also love:Ep 130 | Addicted to Fear & Chaos: The Adult Child Inner Drug Store w/ Dr. Scott LyonsEp 161 | Abandonment Trauma Expert Susan Anderson on Rejection and Equating Love with InsecurityEp 173 | Secret Language of the Body: Somatic Healing w/ Karden Rabin— — —⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection👉 theshitshow.mn.co🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATIONGet 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 ANDREAInstagram → @adultchildpodTikTok → @adultchildpodYouTube → @adultchildpodAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Shitshow Saturday #208 - Wanting to Be Chosen
3w ago00:33:46Tap to summarize✨ NEW COURSE — Safe Within: a 7-week live somatic healing journey to Self energy. Starts July 1st.Grab your spot!⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection👉 theshitshow.mn.co🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATIONGet 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 ANDREAInstagram → @adultchildpodTikTok → @adultchildpodYouTube → @adultchildpodAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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233 - The Gift of Grief: When Loss Becomes the Door You Couldn't Open On Your Own w/ Joe Ryan
3w ago01:15:00Tap to summarize✨ NEW COURSE — Safe Within: a 7-week live somatic healing journey to Self energy. Starts July 1st.Waiting to be chosen is the slowest way to abandon yourself.Joe Ryan is a trauma recovery coach and host of The Joe Ryan Podcast — and today, he's speaking from the other side of the most profound grief of his life. After losing his best friend to cancer and facing his own cancer scare six weeks later, he chose to sit in the pain for a year and a half instead of running from it — and what surfaced wasn't just the grief, it was every abandonment wound underneath, including the lifelong, exhausting pattern of waiting to be chosen. This conversation is about what grief actually gives you when you stop running from it, and the moment you realize the only person you ever needed to choose you was yourself.✨ What this episode explores▪️ Why Grief Is the Price of Love — How the walls that protected you from being hurt are the same walls keeping out the connection you most want.▪️ The Lifelong Wait to Be Chosen — Why no amount of being picked by someone else fixes what only choosing yourself can, and what shifts when you finally stop performing for it.▪️ The Self-Abandonment Underneath the Abandonment Wound — Why the people who feel abandoned the most are often the ones abandoning themselves first, and how to recognize it in your own patterns.▪️ What Sitting in Grief Actually Looks Like — The body-level practice of staying with discomfort long enough for the rumination to quiet down and the real material underneath to surface.▪️ The Performance Mask — The shiny, no-cracks version of yourself you built so no one would see the needy little kid underneath, and what it costs to keep wearing it.▪️ Capacity Is the Whole Game — Why the work you do in the calm seasons becomes the difference between drowning and grieving when the next loss comes.-----------------------🎧 If this episode resonated, you might also love:▪️ Ep 39 — The Fear of Abandonment w/ Joe Ryan▪️ Ep 91 — Complex Trauma, Dating & Setting Boundaries w/ Joe Ryan▪️Ep 204 — The Deeper Truth About Fawning: How Survival Turns Into Self-Abandonment w/ Ingrid Clayton— — —⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection👉 theshitshow.mn.co🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATIONGet 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 ANDREAInstagram → @adultchildpodTikTok → @adultchildpodYouTube → @adultchildpodAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Shitshow Saturday #207 - How Do I Know I'm Healing?
4w ago00:55:42Tap to summarize⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection👉 theshitshow.mn.co🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATIONGet 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 ANDREAInstagram → @adultchildpodTikTok → @adultchildpodYouTube → @adultchildpodAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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232 - Healing Together: A Couple's Journey Through Repressed Trauma w/ Tarah & EJ Kerwin
May 2701:14:10Tap to summarizeWhat your partner does when you fall apart is what your relationship was actually built on.Tarah and EJ Kerwin are licensed therapists, co-founders of Relationship Renovation Counseling in Tucson, and hosts of the Relationship Renovation podcast who teach what they’ve lived inside their own marriage. They met as colleagues at a treatment center, got married, had twins on their honeymoon, and spent the early years of a blended family forced to do the work they'd spent their careers teaching. But the real test came years later, when Tarah's repressed childhood trauma surfaced and they had to figure out what healing trauma in a relationship actually looks like in real time. This is a conversation about what it means to be truly supported by your partner through your darkest moments.✨ What this episode explores▪️ Avoidance Disguised as Calm — Why the partner who seems unflappable is often more emotionally walled off than the one openly struggling.▪️ What Real Support in a Relationship Actually Looks Like — Why healing trauma in a relationship depends less on what your partner says and more on whether they've done their own work.▪️ The Body Remembers Before the Mind Does — Why repressed childhood trauma surfaces through symptoms, startle responses, and somatic flashbacks long before it surfaces as memory.▪️ Why It Feels Safer to Hate Them Than Feel the Hurt — How judging the people who hurt you as "just bad" protects you from the shame of having needed their love.▪️ The Specific Shame Underneath Childhood Sexual Abuse — Why survivors often feel dirty, blame themselves, and brace for rejection if anyone truly sees them.▪️ Why Pressure to Heal Faster Keeps You Stuck — How a partner's expectation around intimacy, progress, or recovery can be the exact thing keeping the other person frozen.-----------------------🎧 If this episode resonated, you might also love:▪️ Ep 203 | The Nervous System Side of Attachment w/ Heidi Priebe▪️ Ep 202 | When Relationships Become Battlefields w/ Tian Dayton: Relational Triggers, Inner Child Fights & Emotional Sobriety▪️Ep 161 | Abandonment Trauma Expert Susan Anderson on Rejection and Equating Love with Insecurity▪️ 204 | The Deeper Truth About Fawning: How Survival Turns Into Self-Abandonment w/ Ingrid Clayton— — —⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection👉 theshitshow.mn.co🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATIONGet 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 ANDREAInstagram → @adultchildpodTikTok → @adultchildpodYouTube → @adultchildpodAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Shitshow Saturday #206 - Impossible Self-Expectations
May 2300:27:46Tap to summarize⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — The Adult Child Healing Community6 weekly Zoom support groups · Discussion boards · Peer connection👉 theshitshow.mn.co🗞️ SIGN UP FOR SHITSHOW NATIONGet 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 ANDREAInstagram → @adultchildpodTikTok → @adultchildpodYouTube → @adultchildpodAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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