I'm almost 40. Today my dad handed me an old diary that I kept from the ages of about 12-16. He found it in the shed and handed it to me. My blood ran a bit cold when I saw it, as I remembered the kind of stuff that I recorded in it! I slipped it into my bag and changed the subject.
I just read it. Lots of it is hilariously innocent, such as listing the items I bought in Boots that day, or the flavour the sandwich I ate for my lunch. I love how I mentioned my horoscopes for that week and how I needed to wish on the star in 'Eva Magazine' for good luck, and that would solve my problems.
Parts of it are disturbing, such when I talk about how low I felt and how I sometimes wished I would die. I said that a few tines, and remember the feeling. One entry said 'I'm almost suicidal' and I did actually attempt an overdose when I was 15. I wasn't very popular in school and was incredibly, desperately lonely.
I was also absolutely desparate for male attention. I was going through some kind of sexual awakening but had very poor boundaries and very low self esteem. I charted these early encounters in my diary really crudely with incredibly vulgar language.
I didn't feel nostalgic reading the diary back; I felt ashamed, and I would be ashamed for anyone to read it, even though it was written a long time ago and I'm now a grown up.
I feel sad and slightly yucky after reading it and would like to destroy it. I'm not sure how.
Any ideas?
And while we are at it, please share your experiences of keeping a diary in your teen years. Have you read back on it? What was funny and did anything choke you up as you read it back?