Why Good Girls Choose Abusers

On the Tomorrow Is Not Today Podcast, Kingsley interviews Caroline Clarke, an ex-police officer and trauma therapist who works with women worldwide who sense something is wrong in their lives or relationships but lack language for it. Clarke explains how early childhood (0–7) encodes a “blueprint” of people-pleasing and self-abandonment that can attract controlling partners, and shares vivid memories of protecting her mother during alcohol-fueled violence, creating hypervigilance and silence. She describes how the body stores trauma, recounting a panic response en route to a knife-point hostage call that later connected to a forgotten childhood knife incident, and discusses fight/flight/freeze, breathing, shaking, and asking “How old am I?” She outlines boundaries, red flags, emotional/coercive control, and rebuilding self-trust, plus her No More Silence foundation, her book Breaking the Good Girl Code, and her Miss Australia Legacy International mission.00:00 Childhood Terror Memory01:31 Meet Caroline Clark02:44 Breaking the Good Girl Code04:22 Blueprints From Early Years06:46 Three Year Old Protector11:03 Narcissistic Control And Survival14:00 Body Keeps The Score15:12 Police Panic And Flashback19:27 Grounding In The Moment21:30 Fight Flight Freeze Explained24:25 Anger Triggers In Public26:41 Deescalation And Trauma Roles29:50 Bravery And Police Insights33:06 Freeze Versus Fight Patterns35:13 Fight or Freeze Patterns36:01 Gender Roles and Conditioning36:49 Breaking Relationship Blueprints39:26 Her Story Emotional Abuse40:54 Empty Fridge Analogy43:09 Breadcrumb Cycles and Promises47:59 Red Flags and Loneliness50:48 Rebuilding Self Trust52:44 Boundaries in Dating56:51 Reparenting the Inner Child59:05 Parenting Through Trauma01:02:55 No More Silence Mission01:05:50 Legacy and Where to Find Her