Adult Child - podcast cover

Adult Child

Andrea Ashleyredcircle.com

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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Episodes

Shitshow Saturday #200 - The Return of Jenny

Jenny's first appearance on the pod - Shitshow Saturday #129 ⚓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 → @ad...

Apr 18, 202642 min

226 - Losing Yourself in Love: Why You Become Whoever They Need You to Be w/ Tammy Sollenberger

Tammy Sollenberger is an IFS therapist and host of The One Inside podcast, and today she's not holding back. She shares about the sudden loss of her father and a devastating breakup — and how both pulled her back to a wound she's been carrying since before she was born: unwanted. ✨ What this episode explores ▪️ Grieving a Parent You Had a Complicated Relationship With — What it's like to mourn someone who both loved you and failed you. ▪️ Hiding Yourself to Keep Them — The many ways you disappea...

Apr 15, 202652 min

Shitshow Saturday #199 - The 4 Alarms of Hypervigilance

⚓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 Time4...

Apr 11, 202631 min

225 - The Deepest Wounds, the Darkest Shame: Covert Incest, Relapse & Radical Self-Compassion w/ Paul Gilmartin

The parts of you that carry the most shame are the parts that most need to be seen. Paul Gilmartin , host of the Mental Illness Happy Hour , is back on Adult Child for the third time, and this is the most vulnerable he's ever been. He shares the story of his recent relapse, how the covert incest he survived as a child shaped his sexuality in ways he's been ashamed of for most of his life, and what it took to finally get honest about all of it. This conversation is about what it takes to let peop...

Apr 08, 20261 hr 26 min

Shitshow Saturday #198 - The Return of Nate

⚓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 Time4...

Apr 04, 202634 min

224 - Scared to Be Seen: Finding Authenticity Through Parts Work w/ Jesse Deal

The moment you finally see yourself is the moment you no longer fear being seen. Jesse Deal is a trauma recovery coach, parts work practitioner, and host of the podcast Trauma Unbound. After a lifetime of playing it small, he walked away from the life he'd been surviving in and started building the one he was actually meant for. This is a conversation about the fear of being seen, finding authenticity through parts work, and what happens when you stop waiting to have it all together and just go....

Apr 01, 20261 hr 4 min

Shitshow Saturday #197 - Wendy N.

⚓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 Time4...

Mar 28, 202640 min

223 - Love That Looks Like Rescue: Trauma Bonds & Outgrowing Relationships w/ Marina Triner

When the person you're trying to save feels exactly like the parent you couldn't. Marina Triner is a somatic coach and host of the Deep Within podcast who helps people move through deep-rooted patterns of stress, emotional disconnection, and shutdown through nervous system regulation and body-based healing. In today's episode, she shares how outgrowing her marriage allowed her to access deeper truths about her parents, her childhood, and deeply rooted patterns she hadn't seen before. ✨ What this...

Mar 25, 20261 hr 1 min

Shitshow Saturday #196 - Sarah O.

⚓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 Time4...

Mar 21, 202649 min

222 - Feeling What You've Been Thinking: Embodying Your Emotions w/ Cory Scott

Cory Scott is a therapist, somatic experiencing practitioner, EMDR specialist, and VITA sex, love, and relationship coach who's back for round two. As the scapegoat child in her family, she spent years channeling repressed anger from childhood into righteous blame, eating disorders, and a stress response she'd mistaken for her personality. She now helps people access the aliveness and freedom that trauma buried — through somatic healing, intensives on her 80-acre property in Virginia, and the ki...

Mar 18, 20261 hr 12 min

Shitshow Saturday #195 - Katie M.

⚓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 Time4...

Mar 14, 202640 min

221 - The Perfect Daughter Trap: Learning Who You Are Without Them w/ Vevian Vozmediano

You don't know who you are because you were too busy being who she needed you to be. Viviana Vozmediano is a trauma-informed coach who works with women who grew up with emotionally unavailable mothers - and she's speaking from experience. After spending her childhood as a Jehovah's Witness trying to be the perfect daughter to earn her mother's love, she was excommunicated and lost her entire community overnight. ✨ What this episode explores ▪️ Why Being the "Good One" Never Works — How becoming ...

Mar 11, 20261 hr 5 min

Shitshow Saturday #194 - Fear In All It's Forms

⚓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 Our Sponsors: *...

Mar 07, 202633 min

220 - The Trauma You Didn't: Unconscious Wounds & Epigenetics w/ Mark Wolynn

What if the anxiety you feel didn’t start with you at all? This episode uncovers how inherited trauma and unconscious patterns shape our lives, Mark Wolynn is a leading expert in inherited family trauma and director of the Family Constellation Institute. , and author of the acclaimed ‘It Didn’t Start with You. He recently published a revised and updated edition of his international bestseller It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle , along...

Mar 04, 20261 hr 5 min

219 - Phone Addiction Through the Lens of Trauma: The Truth Behind Your Screen Time

This is an epidemic no one is talking about: adult phone addiction. Millions of people are struggling worldwide—and most don’t realize how much it’s impacting their focus, mood, relationships, and ability to be present. In this episode, I break down 8 manifestations of compulsive phone behavior, how to tell when you’re in it, and why “just stop” doesn’t work when your phone has become your nervous system’s fastest relief. Device checking compulsion Social media compulsion (passive scrolling + ac...

Feb 25, 202644 min

Shitshow Saturday #192 - Why You Can't Ask For Help

⚓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 Time4...

Feb 21, 202637 min

218 - Finding Your Voice Through Intimacy: Beyond Freeze, Fear, and Fawning w/ Leah Carey

Leah Carey is a Sex and Relationship Coach and host of the Good Girls Talk About Sex podcast. She helps thoughtful, self-aware adults who grew up in fear-based environments to stop freezing, over-explaining, and second-guessing themselves in relationships. In other words: in a world filled with confusion and fear, Leah helps sex make sense. Drawing on her own healing journey from fear and repression, she specializes in working with people from high-control childhoods like Purity Culture, narciss...

Feb 18, 20261 hr 7 min

Shitshow Saturday #191 - Courtney B.

⚓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 Our Sponsors: * Check ou...

Feb 14, 202638 min

217 - Good Kid, Quiet Wreckage: Relational Shame, the Silent Treatment & The War You Waged on Yourself w/ Maggie Nick

Maggie Nick is a trauma therapist and author of the newly published book Good Kids: Why You Suffered in Silence and How to Break the Cycle . She grew up as the good kid in a home with a personality-disordered mother - performing, complying, and quietly falling apart while making sure nobody ever saw the real her. After years of working through what she thought was the "real" trauma, she discovered that relational shame was the deepest layer underneath everything else. ✨ What this episode explore...

Feb 11, 20261 hr 18 min

Shitshow Saturday #190 - The Betrayal Wound

⚓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 Our Sponsors: * Check ou...

Feb 07, 202639 min

216 - How Trauma Becomes Sexual Compulsion: Shame, Betrayal & Technology Addiction w/ Duane Osterlind

Duane Osterlind is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Sex Addiction Therapist – and the host of The Addicted Mind . He specializes in helping individuals and couples impacted by sexual compulsion, porn addiction, and betrayal trauma. His Shame to Resilience group program helps men who've caused sexual betrayal learn to regulate their shame so they can finally show up with the accountability, empathy, and remorse their partners need to heal. ✨ What this episode explores: ▪️ Te...

Feb 04, 20261 hr 17 min

Shitshow Saturday #189 - The Many Faces of Dysfunction

⚓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 Our Sponsors: * Check ou...

Jan 31, 20261 hr 16 min

215 - Repeat or Recover w/ Dr. Tian Dayton: The Cost of Relational Trauma

Dr. Tian Dayton is a clinical psychologist, Senior Fellow at The Meadows, and author of 15 books, including the upcoming Growing Up With Addiction: How Adult Children of Addicts Can Heal Family Trauma, CPTSD, and Codependency . In this conversation, Tian draws on her 40+ years as a professional in trauma and addiction, alongside her own lived experience growing up with alcoholism, to paint a deeply human portrait of breaking the cycle of generational trauma. ✨ What this episode explores: ▪️ Why ...

Jan 28, 20261 hr 26 min

Shitshow Saturday #188 - Crystal

⚓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 Our Sponsors: * Check ou...

Jan 24, 202650 min

214: Challenging the Narrative on Personality Disorders w/ Dr. Peter Salerno: Is It Always Trauma?

Does narcissistic personality disorder always trace back to trauma? This episode explores what truly lies beneath personality disorders. Dr. Peter Salerno is a psychologist specializing in personality disorders and the author of “ The Nature and Nurture of Narcissism ” and “ Cruelty by Nature .” His work challenges mainstream assumptions, arguing that personality disorders can develop independently of childhood trauma, emphasizing biological and trait-based factors. — — — ⚓JOIN THE SHITSHOW — Th...

Jan 21, 20261 hr 38 minEp. 214

Shitshow Saturday #187 - Same Family, Different Childhoods (Amy & Kristie)

⚓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 Our Sponsors: * Check ou...

Jan 17, 202642 min

213: The Truth About Estrangement: Boundaries, No Contact & Grief w/ Dr. Sharon Martin

If you keep getting re-triggered by the people you’re trying to heal from, healing starts to feel impossible. This episode unpacks when taking space is the most loving thing you can do for yourself. Dr. Sharon Martin is a psychotherapist and author specializing in helping adult children recover from difficult childhoods. She's passionate about helping adults overcome the effects of narcissistic and emotional abuse, learn to set boundaries, and develop self-worth. She writes extensively about cod...

Jan 14, 20261 hr

SHITSHOW SATURDAY #186 - The Many Faces of the Inner Critic

⚓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 Our Sponsors: * Check ou...

Jan 10, 202640 minEp. 1

212: The Survive and Thrive Spiral: Combining IFS and Polyvagal Theory w/ Ruth Culver

True healing begins when we stop choosing between our nervous system and our inner narrative—and start listening to both. Ruth Culver is a certified IFS practitioner and IFS constellations facilitator who has brought her own innovative contributions to the field, including the Survive and Thrive Spiral and her Drawing into Self approach. Her own trauma healing journey began when serious health issues led her to seek out hypnotherapy - first as a client, and eventually as a certified practitioner...

Jan 07, 20261 hr 10 min

SHITSHOW SATURDAY #185 - Trevor

⚓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 Uncom...

Jan 03, 202644 min
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