'I was literally dying inside'

Broadcaster and campaigner Charlie Webster tells new how hard it was to open up and face her childhood trauma

- SARAH TULLOCH

As a child, Charlie Webster, 41, was physically and emotionally abused by one man then groomed and sexually abused by another her athletics coach. Years later, after completing a 3,000-mile cycling challenge from Europe to South America for charity, ahead of the 2016 Olympic Games, Charlie became critically ill with malaria and was put on life support. After two weeks in a coma, she made a recovery that baffled doctors both in Brazil and the UK. Now, as she brings out a new book, Why It's OK To Talk About Trauma, she shares her powerful story of survival and resilience...

'I used to think there was something wrong with me. When I was younger, I felt very alone and thought that everybody else was happy and living a wonderful life.

Meanwhile, I believed I wasn’t good enough. We internalise the things that happen to us, especially from a young age, because that’s how we grow and learn.

From the age of seven, I was physically and emotionally abused by a man. We often talk about adults who are in domestic abuse situations, but the effect it has on children is so severe. We learn about ourselves from other people when we’re small, but there are so many that have been brought up amid domestic abuse. It is sadly very common.

In my teens, I was then groomed and sexually abused by my running coach and, for a long time, I detached from my emotions as a way to cope. I could pretty much survive anything. I was seen as a really strong person, because, from a young age, that’s how I had to be to survive. But as an adult, it became a problem because, to me, love was something that was conditional, not unconditional.