Andrea Ashley is the host and producer of the Adult Child Podcast, the leading and fastest-growing podcast on the impact of growing up in an alcoholic and dysfunctional family. A CPA by profession, Andrea worked in accounting and financial firms before launching her podcast. She has worked in CFGI’s Business and Talent Acquisition team and was a senior consultant for Armanino, as well as an audit senior associate at KPMG US. At the Adult Child Podcast, Andrea and her guests have raw and vulnerable conversations about codependency, complex trauma, alcoholism and addiction, generational trauma, and toxic shame.

Andrea joins me today to discuss connection, disconnection, dysfunction, and what it means to be an adult child. She describes her “Tale of Two Brains” and reveals what the Broken Picker Syndrome is. She shares her experience with severe separation anxiety as a child and explains how she realized that unresolved childhood trauma impacts how she maintains relationships. Andrea also highlights how therapy has helped her work through trauma and enumerates the characteristics that adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families have in common.

“The journey into the soul to embrace our pain, live our authentic selves, and own our entire stories—especially the really messy shit—is a beautiful opportunity to heal and grow.” - Andrea Ashley

This week on the Trauma Hiders Club Podcast:

• A Tale of Two Brains and the Broken Picker Syndrome
• How Andrea realized her childhood upbringing impacted her previous relationships
• Severe separation anxiety and alcoholism as a symptom of family dysfunction and trauma
• What happens to abandonment issues when they’re not healed
• How working with a therapist helped Andrea confront complex trauma
• What Andrea was like before she worked with a therapist and how she’s changed
• Recreating the chaos of our childhood
• How therapy led Andrea to search for her life purpose
• The road to launching the Adult Child Podcast
• The ACA’s Laundry List
• Embracing our past and our childhood

Resources Mentioned:

• Dump Your Shit
• Book: Adult Children of Alcoholic / Dysfunctional Families by ACA WSO
• Book: The Abandonment Recovery Workbook: Guidance through the Five Stages of Healing from Abandonment, Heartbreak, and Loss by Susan Anderson

Connect with Andrea Ashley:

• Adult Child Podcast
• Adult Child Podcast on LinkedIn
• Adult Child Podcast on Facebook
• Adult Child Podcast on Instagram
• Adult Child Podcast on TikTok
• Andrea Ashley on LinkedIn
• Email: andrea@adultchildhoodpodcast.com

Related Episodes:

• The Courage to Connect with Our Feelings with Joe Ryan

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