Looking back at old diaries and blogs | INFJ Forum

Looking back at old diaries and blogs

corvidae

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Dec 23, 2008
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Related to the "Dear Me" thread:

What are your reactions when you reread things you wrote years ago? I've been keeping blogs and diaries since 5th grade, and it's really amazing how much we change. Preteen angst is uncomfortable humorous years later.

Example from 8th grade. *facepalm*

Do you delete/destroy old writings as a form of "cleansing"? Or do you keep them as a reminder?
 
I keep some, delete others.
 
I feel incredibly uncomfortable reading them. But I keep it all because one day historians will want to read them, and children in school will be interested to hear that such an awesome emperor had troubles, just like everyone else.
 
I keep my journals. Recently, I went back and read the last journal I filled up. It was a strange feeling. It was like reading a novel in which I empathized with the main character. There was a detachment that I was surprised to feel when I finished reading.
 
I put all my old journals, poems and lyrics out for recycling one day when I was feeling fed up with myself. I wish I hadn't now, because it would be interesting to read through them with the benefit of hindsight. I still have one or two excerpts, plus a longer autobiographical account that compiled some of the material I binned, and I am amazed at the depth and charge of my feelings from that period. I am more contented, docile and hobbit-like these days, so it seems like a lifetime away.
 
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I take certain things and burn them. If there is nothing I can learn from the information and it's purely negative I'll destroy it, usually in a way that fits what the message was saying. If I can still learn from it without it effecting me I'll keep it for future reference. And events I don't want to remember are never written down.

If something happen's that bothers me and no one else knows about it it will never be put into my journal, just an empty gap as if it never happened.
 
Oh man, reading my old LiveJournal entries from when I first started blogging is SO emberassing.

I've deffinately learned more about myself since then.
 
I keep all my diaries [i don't enjoy blogging. i like the physical act of holding pencil to paper and scribbling emotions into the page].
I reread entries here and there. And it strikes me as quite incredible to see how far I've come...though, it hurts and scares me when I reread the passages i wrote when I was struggling through dysthymia.