Maisie Williams Says She Had a 'Traumatic' Relationship with Her Father: 'Really Consumed My Childhood'

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Maisie Williams has emotionally spoken out about her fractured relationship with her father.

The Game of Thrones star, 25, served as the guest for the latest installment of The Diary of a CEO podcast with host Steven Bartlett and spoke on her childhood.

"Well, I, as a young child before the age of 8, had quite a traumatic relationship with my dad," she shared. "I don't really want to go into it too much because it affects my siblings and my whole family."

The actress said the relationship with her father "really consumed a lot of my childhood. Ever since I can remember, I've really struggled sleeping. And I think a lot of the traumatic things that were happening, I didn't realize that they were wrong."

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She said she began to notice that other kids didn't understand the "pain or dread or fear" that she suffered. "Where does the joy, when does that come for me?"

Williams revealed that once that period of her life was over, she believed that she was "free" from the past. However, as she grew up and had other experiences, she realized "there's never an end destination for that freedom. And it comes from within. When are you going to let yourself be free from the pain?"

She said she wanted to be respectful of other members of her family and their experiences, so did not go into specifics.

Her mother was able to "escape" when she was 4 months old, Williams said, revealing that this is the first time she's opened up about her father.

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A turning point came when she was 8 years old and a teacher took her into a room and asked her if she was okay.

"Are you hungry?" the teacher asked, to which Williams said yes.

She recalled her teacher also asking if Williams had eaten breakfast that morning.

"I said no," Williams continued. "She said 'Oh why not?' I said, 'We just didn't have any breakfast.' "

The teacher went on to ask if that was the norm and Williams told her yes.

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Beginning to cry as she shared the memory, Williams said her teacher "was asking the right questions."

"I had so many people who loved and cared about me so much, but I had never been asked the right questions where I could really say what was wrong."

"My Mom came to school and picked me up and my siblings were also at secondary school at the time," said Williams. "Some of them were with Mom and one was not and they were with Dad still. It was the first time that all of the doors were sort of open and all of these things that we were experiencing were out on the table."

She confessed that even at that moment, she wanted to "fight" and let everyone know things were just fine and say, "'These things aren't bad, you're trying to take me away from my Dad and that's wrong.' "

"I was indoctrinated in a way. I think that's why I'm obsessed with cults. I get it. I get it. I was in a child cult against my mother... So I really was fighting it in the beginning. My whole world flipped on its head. Even though all these things that I'd was feeling, I thought 'oh my God I'm so glad I don't have to see my Dad anymore.' It still was like against everything that I had ever known to be true," the actress explained.

Asked how she feels about her father today, Williams said, "I've been thinking about this a lot. I've been trying to do this thing where I stopped taking things personally ... not just when someone's had a bad day and they push in front of you in the queue. But the big things in life."

She explained, "What if I said it wasn't because of me that that happened? If I wasn't there it would've been someone else. It's not because something is wrong with me that these things happened when I was a child."

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.