My mom doesn’t seem to understand that I’m trying to get better. She found my journal and read it. She read all of it. She knows I’m hurting myself and that it’s just a habit now. She knows things I didn’t want anyone to know. I feel so betrayed. I feel fine but then she brings it up and it reminds me how mad I am at her. I know she’s just concerned and trying to help, but honestly, she doesn’t have to ask me every single night if I’ve hurt myself. And she most certainly didn’t have to read MY personal stuff. This feeling is just so irritating. I’ve been getting urges and I don’t want to blame my mom, but that seems to be the only thing that’s making me feel this way. Honestly, I don’t even know what to do. I want to destroy that journal. I can’t even look at it without feeling betrayed. I can’t write anymore and that’s what helped me the most. I feel like if I snap, it’ll be her fault. I plan out what I’m going to say to her, but then I can’t say it because I don’t want to deal with her anymore. She didn’t even admit reading my journal was wrong. I don’t know what to do. How do I talk to her without getting upset? What do I even say?
Dear Rachel_Violet13,
You are right that it was wrong of your mom to read your journal. The one place you felt secure to release your emotions was violated. As well as violated without confession. You are probably feeling that you can’t trust your mom anymore but you need to find away to make peace about the situation within yourself if you truly want to feel better and keep working towards getting better.
Once you have found that peace in the situation then you should feel more at ease about talking with your mother. I’m not going to say that the conversation will be perfect and emotion free. It’s just so however the conversation end good/bad that you will still be okay.
When you talk to can start by saying “I know that you know about my struggle and I want you to know that I am trying to get better…..Then ask her to be honest and tell you why she went through your journal. Then you can talk about having trust, and for to not do it again and really let her know what’s going on in your life with this situation.
So those are some things that you can bring up.
Always remember that the best conversation is a calm conversation. I hope this helps
Peace&Love
AmorLaVida3
Wow, I literally went through the same situation months ago. My mom did the same thing and it completely destroyed my one positive release–writing. It’s exactly like you said. I couldn’t even journal anymore either. It happened to me around..six months ago and I only just began to write again.
It was wrong of your mom to read your journal. Even though she was probably just worried about you, there are always other alternatives to invading your most private space. I couldn’t speak to my mother either. It made me so upset and hurt that I could never get out what I wanted, and needed, to say.
I would suggest writing a letter. You can leave it on her bed and tell her to just let what you wrote sink in before she says anything to you about it. It might be a good alternative to actually speaking to her. This way you get it all off your chest in exactly the way you want to say it, give her time to really think about it all, AND avoid any interruptions.
Plus, a big positive to writing out a letter is that you think more about what you want to say. You may find that it makes you more comfortable just talking to her. But, worst case scenario, you still have the letter to give her.
Tell her everything you talked about in your post. Tell her your privacy was invaded, and that you wish she wouldn’t have read your journal. If she wants you to trust her enough to talk to her about how you feel, you have to be able to trust her. Reading your personal private thoughts makes it very hard to trust her.
As for your journal, I wouldn’t destroy it. Right now the very sight of it brings up a lot of emotion. For now, I would put it away somewhere. Somewhere safe, but not where you see it all the time. After my experience, I hid my journal in my closet. Eventually I think it’d be a good idea to buy a new journal.
I hope I made sense. Best of luck with everything. If you have any questions or anything, feel free to ask me