Do you worry about other people reading your journal/diary?

I've always wanted to be the person with a box of journals under my bed. Everytime I start a journal I censor myself so much that it pretty much amounts to fiction. I can't bear to think of anyone seeing how I really feel, I don't want them to be hurt, or think I am an idiot. Well they might already know that. It just seems that whenever I write something down it is just to embarassing when I read it again. So I end up destroying it and shelving the idea for a few more years.

I have a huge plastic box full of my diaries/journals from the beginning of my journaling days. My therapist told me never to throw them out. She said my children would like to read them after I die. They would learn what I went through and realize that I may have had the same feelings at certain periods in their life. Think of you finding your grandmother's diaries. There would be great history there. You would love it. I know I would. I know it is a little bit different because the things that happened two generations ago are different than the things that happen today, but we don't know what times are going to be like for our grandchildren either. There is also the opportunity for a child or grandchildren to use your journals as fodder for a novel. I DO shudder at the thought of my children reading my journals but they won't see them until I am gone. That is a definite. As for right now, no one has shown any interest in invading my space and desk drawers to read my stuff. They will read something if I offer it to them (ie a short story) but trying to read my handwriting is not something anyone in this house is going to try and do. Even if my husband thought, for example, that I was cheating on him, I don't think he would go looking for my journal. I don't think they have a clue that the stuff I write in some books is personal, real life stuff as I do a lot of writing of poetry and fiction. I will say that I did go back and read some of my journals keeping in mind that my children or grandchildren might read them and I took a thick black marker to a couple of words - only a couple. It just sounded so vulgar, I didn't want to put that image in anyone's mind. LOL!

I have stopped writing them coz they have been read twice, once by people that broke into our house, and once by my brother. I felt so violated that I jusst stopped writing..

I would try to keep my journal in a private place where people could not get to them. No matter how public your life is, there are things you'd like to keep intimate, so I would recommend keeping your private thoughts in a place virtually inaccessible to anyone but you. Perhaps you could get a journal under a lock and key as well.

I used to keep journals when I was around eighteen, nineteen. I used to keep them in my night stand but they weren't locked up or anything. One day I decided to see if my boyfriend at the time was reading my journals so I set him up. He came over and I decided to go in the shower. I turned on the shower, waited a few minutes and then slowly opened the bathroom door. He was supposed to be downstairs watching t.v. but when I snuck my head down the hallway he wasn't there. So I tipped toed towards my bedroom and sure enough that A-hole was reading my diary. I was pissed! Needless to say he is no longer my boyfriend!! After awhile I got rid of all my journals. I just threw them away. I wanted to forget a lot of the things that happened during that time period anyway. Any memory that was worth saving is one that has a picture to back it up, so thats my form of diaries now!

I stopped keeping a diary a long time ago for that very reason, all my thoughts should stay in my head. There is no need to put them on a peice of paper for people to use as blackmail later, i figured that out when I got ridiculed for my thoughts in highschool after leaving a scratch journal in the classroom. Its always best to keep your thoughts in your head where they belong, and not in someone elses.

I agree with you. There is a definite cause of being worried if you just pour in your journal/diary, and, that's why these things are so much important to learn about anybody. But I believe at some point of your life, you need to disclose your personal views. And for any reason, if you can't do it during your life time, no problem, let others read it after our days are over in this world. Finally, I must tell it, I have never kept my diaries private, though it contains very personal views. I have never disallowed anyone to read it with the condition that they can't ask me any question or never raise an issue depending upon what they have read in my diary. For me it works nice. It helps me to speak out things in an elegant way which would have been otherwise kept concealed in my mind only.

The way I think, don't put something on paper that you don't want someone to see. I know a lot of people have diaries and journals, I have one too. I write in it when I need to get something off my chest, and don't have anyone there to vent to(or something I just can't say to anyone else)But once I've gotten it out, I destroy it.

To me, you don't write down anything unless you are comfortable with someone reading it. However, with that being said, we all write down things we don't want anyone to read. I tend to not really write in journals or diaries because I fear that someone will read it.

I dont want other people will read my journal or diary because it my personal things and my secrets are all there in a diary or journal.I think the one who read my journal or diary without my permission does not respect me because i need also privacy and they must respect it.

ya realy i worried someone read my diary...i had that habbit writing diary daily because i like to read that after some period..many times i laughted because of my funny worries when i read my old diary...may that time it would be a serious matter for me!!! but what to do i stopped writing diary because of my parents..they do read my diary secretly..once i was ill and sleeping in my bed my mother and brother told some lines in my diary as joke... i don't know how much i feel i frustrated....i couldn't control myself...i destroyed all my diaries..after that i stpped writing...!!

yes i worry all the time. It's so bad that I will start a journal, write for a few days and then go and rip all the pages up because i am so worried about someone reading what I write.I have been told many times that I should start a journal and so I start to think about it again, go and buy a new one and end up getting rid of it everytime. A journal is suppossed to be a place you can write your deepest thoughs, worries, hurts..anything, but I know my boyfriend will read it and when we get into in argument i sometimes say things that sound mean and would definetly make him mad if he read it and then what started out to be me just venting in my journal would turn into a huge fight between my boyfriend and i. i really love writing so I wais I could find a way to keep a journal but not have to worry about someone reading it.

hmm what kind of journal here anyway? diary? don't destroyed it whatever is that we wrote it by the time goes by, n even if someone read it n locked away?? hmm how far they can do that? i mean nothing in this world we can predict, well u would never know that perhaps ur journal may help some ppl out there.... so kept it... by the destiny.. it will choose the one who should read it.... ^^ maybeeee

Sharing our diary just as giving a look of our privacy to the other.individual privacy is sacred.it tells everybody about ur life,positive or negatively.hence,dont easily expose ur individual details to the other.do it if u are determine to do so and could stand from whatever consequence against u or ur closed.

No, I do not worry as I do not write anything secrete or harmful if read by other in my diary. I keep it in my mind's diary. Diary is cecret book of one person. Other people should not read another people's diary this out of principle, though if any one curious though I will not find any odd writing in my diary.

of course i would. it is my diary and it should be private. no one should ever dare reading it because it is my private they are trying to trespass if they do. They might be even complained invasion of privacy if we wanted to.

I worry about this . I think it is my own privacy in my dairy that no one has the right to read it unless I allow him /her. if some read my diary, I will be very angry. And I tried to hidden it in some place where other one hard to find it . But sometimes, I will let my mother to read it, she is my best friend, I think.

at first i started my blog on msnspace,i was afraid that some ppl(not my good friends)would read them so i decided to write in english.and this really helps because not many ppl are patient enough to read things in a second language.so only my closed friends take time to read my blogs and leave comments.i dont mind letting them know my feelings and some of my secrets.but of course i dont write the things i dont want anybody to know on space but on my diary which is kept in my drawer with lock.so if you dont feel somfortable being read by others,then dont write things in public places,but keep ur thoughts secret in personal place locked:)

I've kept all my diaries and i am still writing. At first when I start writing diaries I use notebook with a lock attached to it. And that's what most of my friends do back then. But now I just write on ordinary paper and don't fear that much of my writing being read by others. Perhaps as i'm growing each day, I treasure more of my memories and my original thoughts. It's not a shame to share with others what i have gone through over these years. I think you should take the matter easy and it's unnecessary to worry much about it.

No!i have never and ever get a private diary.it will make me worried about it.beacause maybe someone can find and read it.so,usually i keep my thought in my mind.that's the safe way i think.