Do you think you’d notice if a partner was controlling you? Most of us do, and most of us are wrong. Sam explains how coercive control starts with attention that feels like love and slowly takes away your money, your friends, your family, and your freedom. She also explains why “just leave” is never that simple. Sam is a coercive control survivor, a mum, and one of Australia’s most prominent voices educating women about controlling relationships. After leaving, she gave evidence that helped send her ex-partner to prison, then turned her experience into a social media platform with millions of views. She now helps women recognise the warning signs, find the language for what they’re living through, and support the people they love.
In this episode, she explains:
* The Slow Squeeze: Coercive control is a pattern of small incidents that quietly strips away your autonomy until you’re managing someone else’s moods instead of living your own life.
* The Red Flags That Look Like Love: Constant texting, sudden jealousy, and deleting male friends “as a boundary” are easy to read as devotion in the first weeks.
* Why You Don’t See It: The boiling frog effect, isolation, gaslighting, minimising, self-blame and trauma bonding all work to keep victims from recognising what’s happening.
* The Money Trap: How economic abuse works in real life, from drained credit cards and locked accounts to being questioned over a coffee.
* Why Couples Counselling Can Backfire: What Sam learned about getting therapy, and why individual support matters before and after you leave.
* How to Really Help Someone: Why pressuring a friend to leave can push them further away, and what to do instead.
Follow Sammie:
Instagram: @sammieejade0
TikTok: @sammieejade0
00:00 Intro
01:02 Why Sam Became a Public Advocate
03:05 What Is Coercive Control?
05:43 How It Started: The Fairy Tale Beginning
07:01 The First Red Flags
08:56 How Entrapment Actually Happens
11:12 Did Anyone Around Her Notice?
13:14 When the Control Escalated
16:43 Isolation During Covid
19:32 Why Victims Don’t Recognise It
21:40 Trauma Bonding Explained
22:25 Why Couples Therapy Doesn’t Work
26:17 Economic Abuse
30:53 Control in the Bedroom
35:27 What Stress Does to Your Body
36:43 “Why Didn’t You Just Leave?”
40:12 The Day She Left
45:46 Stalking, AVOs & Fear of Release
48:31 Why She Went Public
51:16 Rebuilding Your Life
53:06 How to Help Someone You’re Worried About
54:43 “No Is a Complete Sentence”
If you or someone you know is affected by domestic or family violence in Australia, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732.