If a coiled spring is left under tension for many years, a type of fusion occurs between the coils as a result of the climatic conditions to which it is exposed.

If something happens – a seismic shift – which finally enables the unsprung spring to uncoil itself, then at the very moment of release, there is almost a hesitation before the full extent of the pressure which it has been under for so long – perhaps years – is finally released.

I don’t know the circumstances which brought footballer Andy Woodward to the moment when he decided to tell the media of the abuse he had suffered as a child at the hands of his football coach, all I do know, is that he is finally an unsprung spring and I salute his courage and those men who have come out of anonymity to support him.

His tears are the lubricant which I hope will enable him to speak out his torment of abuse as a child, and his suppression of it, within himself, for so many years.

I have not suffered any thing like the horrific abuse suffered by the physical and sexual violence which so many in our society have suffered, but my torment, my unsprung spring, was caused as a result of suppressing the truth about my own sexuality for so many years in conditions where I felt I was unable to be the person who I am.

A familial and religious rigidity in my own environment to a view of what was right and what was wrong, made it hard for me to acknowledge openly and in safety, the truth and depth of feelings I carried for my own sex.

Add to that a toxic mix of bullying at school and later, in the workplace and the life of an unsprung spring becomes intolerable not only to ourselves, but to those around us, those whom we love who suffer too.

My father, a quiet gentle man once exclaimed in exasperation that I was very highly strung – true, I was always on the defensive, like a kettle ready to boil, aggressive and moody.

Perhaps you feel like that, or you are close to someone who acts in ways which you do not understand.

In my case, a series of unhappy events at work, and then in the family, and a sense that relationships with my children were breaking down as a result of my controlling and aggressive parenting, lead me to take the first step in my liberation from fear.

The steps that followed my liberation through talking; and reading; and writing; and running; and crying; and laughing have helped to make sure that my spring is free, my spring is sprung, my spring has bounce once again.

My next blog will be: People Watching

William Defoe