Do you keep a journal/diary?

[LadyDestani]

I'm very excited because I just completed my first journal and I was wondering how many other TBT members keep journals or diaries.

I got my first diary as a gift when I was around 8 years old and wrote in it sporadically for the next three years. I didn't like how that diary had each calendar day already listed at the top of the page, though. It would have been better if I planned on writing every day, but I didn't. So it got really confusing and I started noting the year beside each entry.

I got my second diary around age 12. I picked this one out myself so it didn't have any dates and I was able to note each date at the top of the page myself. I still didn't write in it with any consistency and only kept up with it for a year or two.

I started my current journal in 2008 and my intention was to write in it regularly to document important events in my life and my thoughts and feelings. I kept up with it for about six months before life got too hectic. Then, I picked it up again in 2011 for a while and made a single entry in 2017. I finally picked it up again in 2021 at the recommendation of my counselor and I've been writing in it every few days to a week at most. I find it very helpful to get certain things down on paper because otherwise the thoughts just circle my head over and over again, keeping me from moving on and keeping my stress levels high. Now that my current journal is full, I have a new one all ready to go that was gifted to me by my in-laws years ago. I can't wait to start it.

I also have a writing journal that I've been keeping for nearly 20 years. Whenever I have random ideas or inspiration that I think could be useful for future stories, I write them down in my writing journal so I don't lose track of them.

So, do you or have you ever kept a diary or journal? Do you find it helpful? What style of journaling do you do? Feel free to share.

 

[smudge.e]

About four years I threw my journal away. I had been using it to write my emotions and thoughts down because I was going through the hardest time of my life. I came to a point where I moved on and started my life up again and it made me feel good to be able to just throw it away. I haven’t had one since but maybe in the future.

 

[moo_nieu]

ive tried a few times throughout my life, but ive never kept up with it. i think it would be something nice to look back on though so id like to try again sometime

 

[daringred_]

yes, actually! although it's probably not the type of journal most people have in mind. i always wanted to keep a diary when i was younger, but i hate writing about myself, and that includes thoughts/feelings. it just makes me feel stupid. i tried keeping handwritten and digital ones but ditched both attempts within days. when i attended my course of therapy in 2019, one of the recommendations they gave was keeping a "gratitude/happiness/accomplishment" journal where you note down things in a day that either make you happy, that you're grateful for or that you did, no matter how small. i tried it, since we had to for homework, and stuck with it for a few months before ultimately dropping it. i tried again a year or so later, trying to emulate those fancy bullet journals you see online. i filled up an entire notebook both times but dropped that one too. i started my current journal at the start of last october, and i'm still doing it daily today. it's easier to do now because i've scaled it down. i used to have weekly sleeping charts, but now i've downsized it into a monthly one that fits on a single page, and i used to use a page for day but would have too much space to decorate because i barely do anything. now i fit the whole week (+ a little notes section for appointments and iou's) into a double page, and it looks much fuller with room left to decorate that isn't overwhelming or time-consuming.

sadly, it doesn't make me feel better or anything. i just keep up with it because it's something to do, because it looks pretty and so i don't waste all the journaling supplies i have.

 

[Croconaw]

I want to. I actually have an empty journal that is small enough to travel with me. I just couldn’t find the energy to keep up with it. It’s nice to jot your thoughts down… sometimes I wish I could keep up with one.

 

[Autumn247]

I have one I write in almost daily. I've been keeping journals since I was 14 years old, I'm 27 now. It was suggested as a coping skill when I was in the hospital as a teen and I found it helpful and the habit stuck with me ever since. I basically just write about my day, how I'm feeling mental health wise. And I also sometimes write about what I'm grateful for, and my accomplishments for the day. It's nice to look back on old journals from years ago and see what kind of progress I've made since then in my life with my mental illness. I love journaling

 

[Kamex]

Yes, I've been writing in journals since childhood. When I was a kid, I wrote about fun experiences I had and drew pictures on the pages of my journals. I wrote more about my thoughts and feelings during my teenage years and this helped to improve my handwriting a lot. Now, I keep a gratitude journal so I can look over the things I'm grateful for each day. I find that writing in journals each day helps me become a better writer, which is an incredibly useful skill to have, especially since I take English classes in college. Writing essays is much easier when you've got personal experience with journaling.

 

[deana]

I too have a long on and off history with keeping a journal. I know my first journal I had when I was about 9 or 10 maybe and filled up a decent amount of it. My second journal I started when I was around 13 and I filled up the entire thing of that one. Both of these journals I believe are still around, just in storage somewhere. While I was in university I tried to get back in to journalling a couple of times, I have one journal with a few entries from 2017 but I think there was also perhaps another attempt somewhere that is now lost or thrown out.

Currently I'm in another "on" period with journalling, I started my current journal in March of 2021 and I have filled up about 70% of it with semi-consistent entries. This time around I have found it helpful to keep a list of journalling prompts in the front of my journal. Usually I just write about my day, what I'm feeling at the time, problems I want to contemplate, or whatever but if ever I find myself with some spare time to write and nothing to say I will visit the list of prompts and write about one of those topics. In 2022 I have also started a second smaller daily journal where I write just a few sentences about each day, and I save my big journal for more major reflections or long stories. So far I have not missed a day in my daily journal so hopefully I can keep it up for the rest of the year.

I really like having journals to be able to look back on because something I am learning more and more is that it is so easy to forget things over time and question your own interpretation of events. For example I was recently thinking to myself about something "Why am I feeling this way all of a sudden??" and then I went back to the first entry of my journal and I was feeling the exact same way so it really wasn't all of a sudden after all.

Semi-related: I highly recommend keeping a travel journal to anyone who is going on a big trip. I kept one during my vacation in 2019 and it is so nice to be able to remember more of what I was actually feeling at the time, or things that happened that I don't have photos of. Vacations can be so exciting yet it's also so hard to remember everything so I think keeping a travel journal really helps you to appreciate it all after it's all over. I didn't even use a physical journal for this one I just used the notes app in my phone but I am so so glad that I did this and want to carry forward this practice for future trips.

 

[Belle T]

When I was a child, I kept a diary, but unfortunately asking people to not read it was a bit of a fool's errand. In retrospect, I'm not upset at them for the act in and of itself anymore. I was a really stupid child, and the fact that I came from a comparatively privileged household while whining as though I were a persecuted minority is abundantly obvious, so if anything I feel like I should be the one apologizing for anyone who had the misfortune of having read it. Besides, the most intimate and personal detail you could possibly gleam from it was that my gym teacher in grade school was a big, stupid meanie-face who was not very good, which isn't exactly something I was particularly private about anyway. But at the time, the fact that I didn't feel secure with it quickly disenchanted me to the idea of continuing.

I've thought about starting one again, but it's not like I need another reminder of how very little there is in the way of interesting changes in my life at the moment.

 

[Chris]

I keep a bullet journal. Not in the aesthetic sense—not now, anyway, I did decorate the pages at first—but I find it to be a very practical way of journaling that doesn't result in dozens of partially used notebooks. I'm not supposed to handwrite due to disability and flare-ups can last weeks, so I find it hard to be consistent about writing in them. Then I abandon them because the content I want to write later doesn't fit my headspace from months before.

I use LEUCHTTURM1917 A5 dotted journals, with an A6 one I accidentally ordered solely used for to-do lists. I filled my first A5 journal September 2019 - November 2020. I didn't start the second until June 2021 for unknown reasons. Although during that time I was going through a rough time trying to kick a bad habit, processing a break-up, and mourning someone close to me all while working on an intense research project - so these probably all contribute. I don't use the journal for emotional content unless I can twist it into a creative idea. Flicking through pages used in my current one so far I've mostly been using it for alternating between work and course notes and novel research and planning. e.g. the last four pages filled are notes from a book written in the late 1680s that I've been reading in the evening over the past two weeks.

For the more classic form of diary writing, I struggle to put my thoughts into words when writing about myself so instead I channel it into fiction. I've a writing project I've worked on intermittently for a decade now. I started it while the sole person awake in the penthouse suite of a hotel in Köln ten years ago, surrounded by various people blacked-out across the floor and furniture for what must have been the eighth day straight, and just needing to reflect on the absurdity of the situation and the depths we had fallen to. But I couldn't do it as me, so I did it as someone else: a 27-year-old Luxembourger named René. Now anytime my life gets out of hand, I go back to René's story and bring those themes into his world and explore them there in a safe space.

 

[xSuperMario64x]

I've had the same journal for 5 years and as of late I've been kinda bad at keeping up with it (like how I magically forgot to write in it between March-October 2020 lol) but for the last few months I've been writing in it once or twice a week. I may write in it same-day if I have something I desperately need to get off my chest, but besides that it's mainly going over broad strokes and cool things that happened in the last week.

that journal is actually almost full (finally) so I have another that I'm gonna start up right afterward

 

[Midoriya]

I’m not interested and don’t have the time. I tend to go over a lot of things in my head after they’ve happened, and constantly analyze situations as well.

 

[Bluelady]

Recently I’ve been journaling randomly. I don’t seem to have the mental headspace to get my thoughts on paper. Before 2020, I used to write daily. Perhaps it’s because I write too often about US or global news and not enough about my personal life. At this point it’s starting to look like a timeline with all of the article clippings, my election stickers, and other stuff that I find.

I started journaling back in 2018? It was under the recommendation of a therapist. I would do two types of entries. One to express my thoughs and emotions; and another for affirmation and gratitude entries. The posts for “What are you happy about today?” and New Horizion’s “What did you accomplish today?” fill in the positive gap for me now. Even though I don’t comment too often on either post.

Regarding the actual journal, I buy mine from discount stores like Burlington’s or Marshalls. Sure, you’ll have to rummage a bit because they are always put together with planners. For some reason, they always carry too many journals with bible verses. I’ll buy one if the journal’s cover doesn’t have a cheesy saying like “Wanderlust.”

 

[.: Meri :.]

I've tried in the past, but I find it a bit time-consuming and I have a hard time keeping up with them after a while. I do keep a notebook to help me keep track of some things, but I don't really ever use it for personal entries. If journaling or something similar gets recommended to me by a therapist in the future, though, I'll probably try to pick the habit back up again. Any journal decorating I'd do would have to be very minimal though, or I'd probably start stressing out over it, eheh.

 

[HoleInOneLuigi]

I'm glad for this thread. I've recently started journaling again a few weeks ago, and have been on and off with it. I hope it helps me, it's really my only option to try and better myself right now, as much as I don't like to hear that... Therapy isn't free unfortunately. Also, I'm journaling digitally, FYI.

 

[Dim]

No but I've been thinking of starting one. Just never got to it.

 

[LadyDestani]

@Chris reminded me that I also use my journal for jotting down my thoughts on books that I've read. A lot of times, the themes or situations in a book will trigger certain thoughts or emotions for me, so I document those types of things in my journal as well along with analyzing the writing style of certain authors.

@Tarantella I can definitely understand how having your privacy violated could leave you feeling disenchanted with journaling. I feel lucky that it never really happened to me, at least not that I'm aware of. My early diaries did have locks, but I was a child and just kept the key in my jewelry box. It's not like it would have been particularly difficult for anyone to access if they had really wanted to do so.

When I was younger, I would have been mortified if somebody read my diary. Honestly, I still probably would be if they read my childhood diaries because I'm embarrassed by some of the things I wrote back then. But as for my current journal, I'm not too worried about whether anyone reads it or not. Even though, I do use it to write down my thoughts and feelings, I would openly share those same things with anyone close enough to me that might actually read my journal. So I don't feel a need to hide it away anymore.

 

[Xara]

yes, i currently have 2 journals! my first journal is for venting, random thoughts, and experiences i’d like to remember. i started this journal up back in 2019 and it is the 3rd journal i’ve had. i don’t write in it very often nowadays as i just don’t have much energy, and i tend to obsess over my wording and the structure of my sentences, so journaling (and writing in general) stresses me out a bit now. i’d like to get back into it, though, since i miss writing.

my second journal is one that i write in every day, and i use it to jot down everything that makes me happy each day. i started this last year to try and begin focusing more on the positives of life than the negative, and also to remember the things that make me happy, and it’s helped my pessimistic mindset somewhat. it’s also given me something consistent to do each day, which is also nice. :’)

 

[VanitasFan26]

Yes and I use it to express how I feel these days. Trust me it helps out a lot whenever you're really upset about something in your life.

 

[JellyBeans]

I do! for years I've gotten little diaries as stocking fillers at christmas, either the kind that just has a little a6 page for each day or even splits a two page spread across a whole week. i use those as your more generic day to day 'went to school, saw some friends, did work' etc etc diaries, and alongside that i have a more traditional 'journal' that i will write in far less often but when i do it's big paragraphs that are more emotional. i don't use that one as often though, so i've been using the same one for years! it's quite nice though because i also do an end of year reflection in it, so i can look through i think the last 4? years and how i felt at the end of each of them