When I was a young girl around the age of 10 I was given a diary with one of those cheap locks on it. One key fits all! Anyways I used to write in it the most intimate details of my young life, all of my sadness and wants and needs. My sister would read it and tell my mother what was in it. After I found out that they were reading it and my mother was angry with what I wrote, I began writing what I thought she would like to read...only good stuff and made up good stuff. Eventually I quit the charade and never went back to actually writing in a diary or journal...

What I have done over the past 10 years has been an art journal. Not many words but images, drawings, paintings, photos, collages... I feel that the art is less easy to interpret by any one who might see it. Usually what I would do is work in my art journal and fill it up and then throw it away after all of the pages were used up. I told my therapist that I threw them out. She asked me why I would do that. I explained about the lack of privacy I grew up with.

Over the past year I have brought my art journals to my sessions and my therapist and I talk about what I have worked on during the week. She is the only person I share the images with and she knows this. I however do not throw them away anymore. In fact we discussed this in sessions and she pointed out that since I live with only my husband now and he could care less about what was in them that it is safe to assume no one will be looking through them at my house. Which is true and my art is kept on bookshelves in my library at home.