Diaries

Diaries, by definition, are private writings.  If the stories are to be made pubic, or to be shared with others, this is done at the invitation of the author.  Or so I thought....

I stopped writing my journal early in my 'marriage' because the significant other thought he was so much a part of me that there was to be no privacy in my writings.  He read them.  And then he screamed, questioned, criticized and condemned the ideas, concepts and feelings I had expressed privately with my words.  So I quit writing.

He did not respect the privacy of our daughters either.  He read their diaries.

I began writing again at the beginning of the end.  We would share space downstairs, and he would rage, and speak words that sounded insane.  I would then go upstairs to the privacy of my room.  (He never entered my room when I was in it or at home; but often, I'd come home from work and he would inform me he found $5 or $10 in the pocket of a jacket hanging in my bedroom closet.)  I'd go back downstairs for another dose, and then return upstairs to record the words I had just heard, as literally, word for word, as I could recall.  After a week or so, I read the 'journal' from start to finish, and I knew I was living with an insane psychopath.

Had I managed to continue writing in the early years, perhaps I would have protected my daughter from what he did to her.  I now know what he did.

Teacher Ruth tried to warn me.  But I chose to believe him.