[Naynay99]

Hey. So I went thru some of my old journals. I was looking for my bucket list of stuff I want to do before I die. I want to try to accomplish some of the things on my list yhis summer that I have been putting off.
I found an older version of my list, but not before reading some of my journal entries from almost 20 years ago. Total mind &uck. A lot of it is dumb stuff and a lot of me saying the same thing over and over.

Been the one journal was around the time I first started seeing a therapist for my depression and it sounds like I was actively suicidal much of the time. Which breaks my heart but also makes me realize I need to destroy this shiit so when I die nobody else comes across them and reads them. I don’t want anyone to have to know what it felt instead my head when I was all fcked up. Especially bc I usually only wrote when feeling down.

So I am gonna burn them all. I wrote to get thru stuff and since I am still here they must have helped, but now their existence is giving me worry so I think it’s time to say goodbye. I may rip out a few pages or drawings I really want to save; but otherwise I think it’s time for them all to go. Bonfire at my house! Lol.
Just wondering-do u all keep your old journals? If so have you gone back and reread them? Would you want people that find and read them after you are gone?
I think the most discouraging thing I learned by reading them is that I sound the same in my head now as then. Perhaps I have not really grown all that much or gotten much better than back then- I am still a mess just older. Just dealing with it a tiny bit better? Idk. It did reassure me that I really was that bad off, as I sometimes wonder if I just exaggerated how bad things were.

Anyway this is a random post but I am curious what people do with their old journals. I think I will read them all before getting rid of them. But no more saving them for some imaginary memoir I will write someday. I’m gonna light em up and watch it all burn in my fire pit. Sounds very cathartic.
Take care.

[liveforsummer]

I recently shredded all the stuff I wrote last year while going through one of my worst depressive episodes. When I read it a few weeks ago I thought I don’t want my kids to read this when I die. So it’s gone. I do have more happier journals I wrote about 20 years ago although you can still see the anxiety in there at times.

[~Christina]

I don’t journal as I always go back and read it .... and that never ends well.

[Naynay99]

Yeah, it’s probably morbid to think about but my ghost would be cringing if other people read some of what I wrote. That’s a good idea, just save the ones with happy memories. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing... I will prob rip out some stuff I can’t bear to get rid of and put it in my scrapbook and then burn the rest.

I do want to start writing regularly again though- I used to write almost on a daily basis. I do think it helps at the time but maybe isn’t meant to be reread. Idk. I think just tossing them in the trash seems wrong though. So burn them I shall!

I have a lot of half full journals, I have a habit of buying a new journal every new year, it’s like I don’t want last years crappiness to somehow taint the new year so I need a new book to fill that doesn’t mix with my thoughts from the previous year. It’s silly but I feel like when I restart journaling I don’t want my old thoughts to give off their bad juju onto my new ones. Clean pages means possibilities of better days. I also write myself a message inside every journal to my future self that it will get hettter and whatever I do, do not kill myself. So I’m not sure I’d want anyone else to read that either.

I don’t think I will look them over one last time before burning until I am in a better frame of mind Tho. So hopefully nothing happens to me between now and a few months from now.
Have a good nite.

[wildflowerchild25]

I threw out some journals for the same reason. I was in a terrible frame of mind when I wrote in them and just didn’t see the purpose in keeping them. I never want to relive that so it was time to go.

I have a few journals somewhere, not sure where but they're about. I don't know what I want to do with them, frankly I don't care if people read them after I die, not like they'd be able to anyways. If I was depressed I'd write a sentence, otherwise it's page after page of illegible nonsense. I actually find it helpful to look back and notice patterns.

Funny story, I frequently wrote about how stupid everyone around me was in high school classes and then just ripped the papers in half and threw them in recycling when I got home. Well one night a bear knocked the bin over and those letters were all up and down the driveway. My dad read a little bit just commented on my colorful language.