{"id":2937,"date":"2025-12-22T17:32:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T17:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=2937"},"modified":"2025-12-22T17:32:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T17:32:32","slug":"i-would-wet-myself-rather-than-leave-my-bedroom-my-terror-growing-up-in-an-abusive-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=2937","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I would wet myself rather than leave my bedroom \u2013 my terror growing up in an abusive home\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sundays were the worst for Charlie Webster growing up. With her mum out at work at a nearby supermarket she was left alone with her abusive stepfather.<\/p>\n

Hoarding chocolate and crisps that she\u2019d brought with her paper round wages, Charlie, then 10, would hide silently in her room, trying desperately not to attract his attention.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sundays were my dread days. I would listen out for the car or the door, because he might have gone out for half an hour, and I could use the loo.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sometimes he would make me come out, because he might want to taunt me. He would make me sit there and throw things at me, punch me or give me a Chinese burn,\u2019 the broadcaster and campaigner tells\u00a0Metro\u00a0<\/strong>over Zoom from her home in\u00a0London<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Sheffield, Charlie, now 43, learned how to move around the house in near silence, avoiding creaking steps and holding her breath so he wouldn\u2019t register her.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2018I tried to make myself as small and as silent as possible, to the point where I struggled to go to the toilet because of the noise of flushing or shutting the door. I would wet myself, sometimes, rather than going out of my bedroom,\u2019 she recalls.<\/p>\n

\u2018I remember thinking \u2013 surely life shouldn\u2019t be like this. I was so unhappy and it was hard seeing my mum so deeply upset all the time.\u2019<\/p>\n

From the time Charlie\u2019s stepdad arrived on the scene at the age of seven, she lived in fear and hyper vigilance, constantly afraid of the violence lashed out at her or her\u00a0mum<\/a>, Joy, and later her brothers eight, 10 and 16 years her junior.<\/p>\n

\u2018Every day there was a fear that, would we still be alive? Every morning I would wake and think \u2013 Is my mum dead \u2013 because I\u2019d hear stuff in the night.\u2019<\/p>\n

The\u00a0violence<\/a>\u00a0was brutal; punching, kicking and on one occasion in a drunken rage in a holiday apartment he pushed Charlie to the ground and \u2018frothing at the mouth\u2019 attacked her so violently a passerby charged in and pulled him off.<\/p>\n

\u2018He would control food. I would become very good at being able to get a piece of food without him realising because he would count the yoghurts. And I wasn\u2019t allowed to use the shower until everyone else had had theirs to use the hot water.\u2019<\/p>\n

He called Charlie ugly, thick and pathetic, and of course the emotional abuse affected her self-worth. \u2018I thought, I\u2019m not lovable. I\u2019m not good enough, It\u2019s my fault. I\u2019m a terrible person. I\u2019m why everybody\u2019s unhappy.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As she reached her teens, Charlie walked a delicate balance between being out of the\u00a0house<\/a>\u00a0as much as possible without giving grounds for her stepdad to punish her.<\/p>\n

Running competitively became her escape, training and clubs her sanctuary. She would stay at friends\u2019 houses whenever she could, where she saw how different the dynamic was to her own toxic home.<\/p>\n

When she came back, Charlie and Joy were afraid to talk out loud to each other.<\/p>\n

\u2018I would come in after school and then training after having got two buses back and done my homework on the bus. And I would creep in around half nine, and my mum would be there in the kitchen cleaning \u2013 that was how she coped.<\/p>\n

\u2018If I spoke to her, within seconds he would come into the kitchen and do something to separate us, or smash something or physically hurt me or mum. It got to the point where me and my mum just wouldn\u2019t speak to each other if we were in the house.\u2019<\/p>\n

In a cruel twist of fate, Charlie wasn\u2019t safe out of the home either. When she was 15, she was sexually abused by her coach, which she explored in a\u00a0BBC<\/a>\u00a0documentary in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u2018He used my own vulnerability and\u00a0trauma<\/a>\u00a0against me, because I already had low self-worth and I trusted him,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Charlie\u2019s escape finally arrived when she came home from school at 17 to find a \u2018Sold\u2019 sign outside her home.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was told by my mum they were moving to\u00a0Leeds<\/a>, and he said I wasn\u2019t allowed to go with them. I can\u2019t even begin to tell you how much that broke my heart. My brothers were my life. They were what helped me hang on, because I love them so much and I took care of them.\u2019<\/p>\n

With her biological father elsewhere, Charlie moved in with her maternal grandparents while she finished her education. She realises now that it was Joy\u2019s effort to get her to safety, but it was another blow.<\/p>\n

\u2018With my Nan and Grandad I felt even worse. Because even though they were kind, and I was safe, I felt like I was a burden on them and felt totally rejected by my mum, and really scared, because I couldn\u2019t be with my family to try and manage the situation.\u2019<\/p>\n

Charlie finished her education \u2013 but left running \u2013 and ended up deeply depressed yet highly successful in her career.<\/p>\n

She funded herself through university, moved to\u00a0Madrid<\/a>\u00a0in her early twenties and travelled all over the world broadcasting, eventually working for the BBC and Sky, covering global events from the Olympic and\u00a0Paralympic<\/a>\u00a0Games and\u00a0FIFA<\/a>\u00a0World Cup and she became an advocate, speaker and campaigner against domestic violence. But still she hadn\u2019t escaped the abuse.<\/p>\n

\u2018It was so contradictory, because I would be on Sky looking great and smiling away, and then I\u2019d drive up north for\u00a0Christmas<\/a>\u00a0and I\u2019d walk into the house and immediately I would feel that same air that I knew as a kid and within seconds I would revert.<\/p>\n

\u2018I owned a property, I was doing well, I had a profile and a voice \u2013 and then I\u2019m a child again, sitting in the corner, wrapping presents on the floor and he comes over and kicks me.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2018I had created a career and independence for myself. Yet all those feelings of low self-worth remained. I went into risky sex and unhealthy behaviour patterns because relationships were very triggering and\u00a0traumatising<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018I drank a lot when I was a teen to take the pain away. As I got older, I over-worked and over-exercised.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was hyper vigilant in every room \u2013 always aware of where the exit was, sleeping on the side of the bed near the door. I had nightmares and flashbacks.\u2019<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also worked with the\u00a0Government<\/a>, advising ministers on abuse as part of the Ministry of Justice Victims\u2019 Panel and campaigned on the Domestic Abuse Bill and wider victim legislation to ensure children\u2019s voices are heard, because she desperately wants to help break the cycles of abuse.<\/p>\n

\u2018As a society, we can\u2019t treat the\u00a0children<\/a>\u00a0as secondary in domestic abuse \u2013 after the parent. We need to see the child as a victim too. Children need to be at the forefront of policy, legislation and resourcing,\u2019 she explains.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is the reason I tell my story. Not because it\u2019s about me and what\u2019s happened, but because it\u2019s\u00a0happening elsewhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018I want people to understand that without proper support and mental health care, these\u00a0children<\/a>\u00a0can grow up to be adults who become the next victim or perpetrator in the cycle of abuse.<\/p>\n

\u2018Abusive adults may go on to new relationships and families, but I want people to understand the deep\u00a0trauma<\/a>\u00a0that domestic abuse leaves you with and the profound effects that can have. I\u2019ve done so much work on my trauma and am in a really great place to speak about my own journey of healing to use my story to help others.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sundays were the worst for Charlie Webster growing up. With her mum out at work at a nearby supermarket she was left alone with her abusive stepfather. Hoarding chocolate and crisps that she\u2019d brought with her paper round wages, Charlie, then 10, would hide silently in her room, trying desperately not to attract his attention. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t