What To Do With Journals

[Danielle4]

I have always been a bit unsure about journals. I have at least five that are all full of big personal entries I want no one else to see, even I get shocked reading them back. I usually write them when I'm really in a rough patch.

I am coming back to my family apartment after a year in university in a different state and everything has to come with me, including journals.

I've no idea what to do about them. I don't quite want to read them. And yet, I don't want to shred them either. But if I'm taking them back home I'm terrified family will find and read them.

What do you think?

 

[Sideways]

No way would I get rid of my journals, and I've got 3 overflowing shelves on my bookcase of them:rolleyes:

It would make me seriously uncomfortable to think that family would a) be going through your stuff without your knowledge, and b) upon discovering that they're your journals, proceed to read them anyway..?

Maybe wrap them as a stack with some newspaper and just keep them with your textbooks? People "accidentally" stumbling on them are going to have to unwrap the package and get totally busted to get to them that way.:locktopic:

My mum wants me to destroy my journals. She thinks it would be healing. I don't read them unless I need to check the date of something, but they're my version of my history. So no way are they getting thrown out. Not like that's gonna make the past disappear.:(

 

[watundah]

I kept journals in my 20s then threw them away because I was ashamed of my behavior. How I would love to read them now decades later. Now I've written my history, inner child work art therapy journals, and so on, mostly on my laptop. I would be mortified if anyone read them so I understand your worry. A lockbox at a bank is relatively inexpensive or a fireproof safety box that locks and can be hidden or stashed with a trustworthy friend are a couple of ideas. Just don't pitch them...

 

[ladee]

I started journaling when I was 17, and continued until in my 50's... I went thru them over the course of a few months...I kept out the ones with the really hard trauma work and all my inner child work... I burned the rest of them. But I was ready... kept the stuff I needed to. No regrets.

 

[ghotiff]

I minded a friends journals once as she stopped trusting the people she was living with. It was no effort for me, maybe you know someone to ask?

If there are a lot you could put them in a luggage bag and lock the bag. Luggage bags are set up to be locked.

 

[FauxLiz]

I have kept journals for nearly 40 years and have every one of them. I did stop writing once when my ex husband (then) husband in an attempt to prove I was cheating violated my trust and searched the house while I was out read my journal and then hid it at his mother's from me. I would never destroy them. I have considered finding a ghost writer and having them converted into a manuscript to see if there is a publisher interested in printing my story but then I realize since I have never told my family about the things that have happened to me over the years publishing a book would be a very public way of telling them.

I agree with watundah, get a small locking firesafe and keep them. My T has asked a couple times if he could read some of them but I am not at the point yet where I can do that. Some day I hope to trust him enough that I no longer feel the need to keep secrets even from my T.

 

[EveHarrington]

I have one that I want to destroy. Come to think of it-----I think I already did? It's missing and I haven't seen it in awhile. The rest I love and will keep them.

 

[ladee]

The ones I burned, tended to be non stop whining about ex husbands !! The rest I kept !! The important ones, telling my story and my journey. I keep a journal on my computer now,

 

[Deleted member 29920]

I'd go for the padlocked in a luggage or rucksack idea, that's what I used to do when I lived with people who pry ;)

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I had a black trash bag of mine and I finally threw them away. Now when I read on the forum, I can relate to so much and remember writing some of the same things. i kind of like the locked luggage idea, I wish you find the best solution for you.

 

[Changing4Best]

I live alone, so I keep mine in an under the bed box. I have not got anything really specific in them about my abuse, they are all letters to God, thanking Him for rescuing me from it and other uplifting things. I have not read them in years, but I keep them just in case I feel like it some day. I have no reason to destroy them or throw them out.