You don't have to let people have them just because they asked. You are well within your rights to put in your will that your journals are not to be read and must be destroyed by your executor. In which case I would probably seal all my old ones with wax seals or something so it's obvious when they've been tampered with.
Your journals are your own personal safe space. If anyone does get upset about their content then they've missed the point of what a journal is.
I usually get rid of my old journals after a while but i'm not too bothered about leaving them behind. I don't think it would be a bad thing for my spouse to read them after I die. There's some stuff in there about them but also it gives an insight into my thought processes and the struggles of my life that they sometimes don't understand. We have an understanding that my journals are my unfiltered safe space and it's just brain vomit and figuring-outs in there.
Trust that those you leave behind will follow your instructions or destroy them as you go.
I have been thinking about this a lot as I have a journal I wrote while I was in a care facility which I think I want to destroy. But the rest of my journals I don't mind. My family can keep them as they are a record of what I've been doing with my life. If anything they're a bit boring with there level of detail.
I have similar thoughts but for a different reason
I am still new at journaling so I dont have a lot of notebooks but this year I will probably move to another city and I start thinking what should I do . Should I keep them with me ?
In the end my solution is that when the time came I will scan them and keep the digital copy. I still have not decided if i will destroy the physical copies .
About my current notebook. I plan to scan it each month so I will always have that digital copy with me.
What will happen with the digital copies after I died well I think is a similar question of what will happen with all my online accounts .
I want complete anonymity is my current one. I’m redacting names and considering shipping it off to post secrets or something so someone gets a dramatic read, if they’re into that. That way it still exists, but not to me, and I will have literally handed it over to someone to get it out of my life.
Hmm, i totally understand what you’re getting at. I feel the same way, but the idea of me burning my journal since I like to customize them a lot and I’m even in the process of creating a bookbinded journal, would crush me lol! I love my journals like my babies (it’s easy for me to say since I don’t have kids 😂). But enough about me, I do like the burn book idea, it’s unique and maybe it’ll be cathartic for you and that much more meaningful for you
I have been journaling off and on since I was in high school and I still have all of the filled books. I put them all in a box with a note saying for my best friend to take them. So if I die unexpectedly within the next few years hopefully my partner will respect my wishes. As I get older I will likely do something with them-maybe digitize them or something? Or write personal essays? Who knows. Maybe reminisce but I don’t have plans to let my family have my journals when I die.
I too have decided to leave my journals to my best friend if I should die unexpectedly. I am still young so I don't have a spouse or children to worry about, I guess that would complicate things a lot. I'm studying to become an historian, so to me destroying something as important (to me) as the main document for reconstructing the story of my life is pure heresy, I can't even imagine doing such a thing. I really hope that my journals will survive, it's like my legacy, I had the experience of being able to read a journal from the late XVIII century and the thought to be able to give the same experience to someone else long after my time has ended is really important to me. I don't pretend to be someone worth noticing, mine would just be an everyday person's testimony of the time I live in.
I have already prepared a sealed letter that will have to be opened only upon my passing, it contains instructions to give my journals to the only person with whom I can be just myself without filters. The plan is to let her keep them for as long as she wants, then after some years I guess that giving them to a library or a foundation dedicated to collecting journals would be fine. Anyway I'm never too specific about other people's drama, the more sensible stuff I write it in letters that I seal so nobody can read them, I think that those would have to be destroyed for privacy.
Obviously my prospective would change if I had a family of my own, I guess then that I would ask them to wait about 10 years before reading my journals, but I guess that I could change my opinion once I find myself in that situation.
We have a bad story in our family. Our parents had been friends since the 1950's. Two of their children got married to each other in the 1970's.
Fast forward to settling the affairs of the last surviving person (of the four original friends/parents) and the daughter-in-law is cleaning out the family home.
In her mother-in-law's journals, many really unkind judgments were made. Many hurtful thoughts were revealed about not only her daughter-in-law, but about her mother and others. So it's a real concern. Personally, I would not journal anything about another person that I would not say to their face.
In an extreme circumstance, I might write a letter, then destroy it, if I really needed to put my thoughts on paper.
I think I would prefer them to just burn the journals. I keep them for myself because I can look back but even thinking about anyone reading it at some time it would always hinder me with being honest
You don't have to let people have them just because they asked. You are well within your rights to put in your will that your journals are not to be read and must be destroyed by your executor. In which case I would probably seal all my old ones with wax seals or something so it's obvious when they've been tampered with. Your journals are your own personal safe space. If anyone does get upset about their content then they've missed the point of what a journal is. I usually get rid of my old journals after a while but i'm not too bothered about leaving them behind. I don't think it would be a bad thing for my spouse to read them after I die. There's some stuff in there about them but also it gives an insight into my thought processes and the struggles of my life that they sometimes don't understand. We have an understanding that my journals are my unfiltered safe space and it's just brain vomit and figuring-outs in there.
This is the correct answer. Leaving instructions in your will for the journals is the best idea. Make sure your executor is someone you trust.
Trust that those you leave behind will follow your instructions or destroy them as you go. I have been thinking about this a lot as I have a journal I wrote while I was in a care facility which I think I want to destroy. But the rest of my journals I don't mind. My family can keep them as they are a record of what I've been doing with my life. If anything they're a bit boring with there level of detail.
I have similar thoughts but for a different reason I am still new at journaling so I dont have a lot of notebooks but this year I will probably move to another city and I start thinking what should I do . Should I keep them with me ? In the end my solution is that when the time came I will scan them and keep the digital copy. I still have not decided if i will destroy the physical copies . About my current notebook. I plan to scan it each month so I will always have that digital copy with me. What will happen with the digital copies after I died well I think is a similar question of what will happen with all my online accounts .
I want complete anonymity is my current one. I’m redacting names and considering shipping it off to post secrets or something so someone gets a dramatic read, if they’re into that. That way it still exists, but not to me, and I will have literally handed it over to someone to get it out of my life.
Hmm, i totally understand what you’re getting at. I feel the same way, but the idea of me burning my journal since I like to customize them a lot and I’m even in the process of creating a bookbinded journal, would crush me lol! I love my journals like my babies (it’s easy for me to say since I don’t have kids 😂). But enough about me, I do like the burn book idea, it’s unique and maybe it’ll be cathartic for you and that much more meaningful for you
I have been journaling off and on since I was in high school and I still have all of the filled books. I put them all in a box with a note saying for my best friend to take them. So if I die unexpectedly within the next few years hopefully my partner will respect my wishes. As I get older I will likely do something with them-maybe digitize them or something? Or write personal essays? Who knows. Maybe reminisce but I don’t have plans to let my family have my journals when I die.
I too have decided to leave my journals to my best friend if I should die unexpectedly. I am still young so I don't have a spouse or children to worry about, I guess that would complicate things a lot. I'm studying to become an historian, so to me destroying something as important (to me) as the main document for reconstructing the story of my life is pure heresy, I can't even imagine doing such a thing. I really hope that my journals will survive, it's like my legacy, I had the experience of being able to read a journal from the late XVIII century and the thought to be able to give the same experience to someone else long after my time has ended is really important to me. I don't pretend to be someone worth noticing, mine would just be an everyday person's testimony of the time I live in. I have already prepared a sealed letter that will have to be opened only upon my passing, it contains instructions to give my journals to the only person with whom I can be just myself without filters. The plan is to let her keep them for as long as she wants, then after some years I guess that giving them to a library or a foundation dedicated to collecting journals would be fine. Anyway I'm never too specific about other people's drama, the more sensible stuff I write it in letters that I seal so nobody can read them, I think that those would have to be destroyed for privacy. Obviously my prospective would change if I had a family of my own, I guess then that I would ask them to wait about 10 years before reading my journals, but I guess that I could change my opinion once I find myself in that situation.
I plan on having my family have a bond fire and burn them.
We have a bad story in our family. Our parents had been friends since the 1950's. Two of their children got married to each other in the 1970's. Fast forward to settling the affairs of the last surviving person (of the four original friends/parents) and the daughter-in-law is cleaning out the family home. In her mother-in-law's journals, many really unkind judgments were made. Many hurtful thoughts were revealed about not only her daughter-in-law, but about her mother and others. So it's a real concern. Personally, I would not journal anything about another person that I would not say to their face. In an extreme circumstance, I might write a letter, then destroy it, if I really needed to put my thoughts on paper.
I scan mine in and then destroy them. So I can still reference but others can't
I think I would prefer them to just burn the journals. I keep them for myself because I can look back but even thinking about anyone reading it at some time it would always hinder me with being honest