Speaking about the impact the abuse had on her, Carter said: “It makes you feel really small. It makes you feel like you’re not important, that you’re not valuable.
“It makes you second guess everything that you do – it’s not a nice place to be. It doesn’t make me feel confident going back on to the pitch. My family was so devastated by it as well and so sad.”
FA chief executive Mark Bullingham said during the tournament that the governing body had referred the “abhorrent” abuse to UK police.
Carter stepped back from social media following the abuse, though she said the support received from the England fans “meant everything”.
The England team decided to stop taking the knee before matches, with manager Sarina Wiegman saying the impact of the anti-racism gesture was “not good enough”.
Carter said the psychological impact of the abuse she suffered made her feel “scared” when Wiegman told her she had been selected to play in the final.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever been scared – too scared to play,” she added.
“I think it was a mixture of such a big game, but then on top of that [I was] scared of whatever abuse might come with it, whether it’s football based or whether it was going to be the racial abuse that was going to come with it because I did something wrong.”
