Below is some writing on addressing the fears of someone reading my journal, schadenfreude, malicious laughter, an exploration of ignorance, and a few words of encouragement.
Sometimes while I am writing in my journal I think about someone reading my journal. Maybe it's a family member or a curious neighbor as they're cleaning my stuff out. Maybe it's the person at goodwill that somehow got a hold of it when my stuff was donated, maybe it's a scientist in the future and they're holding it up and laughing with their colleagues. Best case scenario (or is it?) - my journal is trashed.
I know I'm not the only one that fears having my journal read (and sometimes this is from trauma and I am not talking about that in this instance because an invasion of privacy is a different matter). More specifically, I have this idea - or fear? That they'll know what's wrong with me. Not in a way like I was hiding secrets in my writing or whatever; but like they'll see what I don't see. They'll read between the lines where I am unable to. This fear stems from the idea that I think (feel) there's something wrong with me and I can't quite place what it is and trying to get help for it doesn't work because I can't explain it if I haven't figured it out and especially not enough to put into words.
As I type that, it sounds like paranoia. Let me give you an example. When I was young, I didn't know I was lactose intolerant. I just knew that eating every morning made me sick. At the time, I didn't have the understanding that something could make you sick besides a sickness. So I did not have the words to describe what was happening and was often dismissed to the point that I stopped eating breakfast in the morning. After several years (approx. 5 years?) I was in middle school and one of my friends told me she was lactose intolerant. I'd never heard of it & at the time I couldn't Google what was happening to me because I didn't have access. But there it was - the words and answer to what I was suffering from. Regardless of having neglectful parents in that situation (like seriously why the hell not take me to a doctor?) I could then tolerate breakfast. By tolerance, I mean at 27 I also found out I was gluten intolerant too (ha, yay - but that's another story).
I often think that maybe I don't have the right words to describe what is happening / what is wrong because I can't understand what is normal / not normal. It's like an awareness that there is more to the story but it's inaccessible. Do those details matter or could they make all the difference? So I keep exploring and journaling. Maybe I will stumble on the solution that psychologists, psychiatrists and doctors didn't. Maybe I'll finally come up with the right words to take to my care team and get things sorted!
OR.... Maybe I'll be laughed at by someone who reads my journal when I'm hopefully not here anymore. Specifically I imagine being judged or that they'll perceive my problems as stupid, irrational, lazy, or ignorant. Worse though, the laughter is what i'm afraid of - I don't want to be the source of someone else's pleasure based on my own pain or unintentional ignorance.
The thing is, I've judged others and laughed at others like this too. Now, my father was a sadistic butthole and sometimes I wonder if he's the one that taught me that. I don't laugh AT others nearly as much as I used to being away from him because I've learned others are struggling just as much as I am. The other side of this though, is that maybe it's human nature? Perhaps we laugh because it makes us feel better about our situation. I'm not saying it's right - it's wild to me that laughter may be morally wrong.
I'm still growing and learning - now with internet access - so it's faster.
I researched Socrates a bit and a passage where he was explaining the pleasure of malicious laughter to Protarchus.
"But this pleasure in the face of the bad things belonging to neighbors – did we not say that it was the product of malice? [P: Necessarily.] Our argument leads to the conclusion that if we laugh at what is laughable about our neighbors, by mixing pleasure with malice, we thereby mix pleasure with pain. For we had agreed earlier that malice is a pain in the soul, that laughing is a pleasure, and that both occur together on those occasions (49d-50a)."
It reminded me of a word I learned from Brené Brown's book "Atlas of the Heart." The word is Schadenfreude, pronounced sha-din-froy-da. It's combo of German words that mean "harm" and "joy."
What I'm getting at is if someone laughs at my journals or takes pleasure/joy in my suffering through life at times & doing my best to learn and grow - that's taking pleasure in my pain. I am not doing wrong by trying to live a better life and process my own life.
Ultimately, it should not deter me from writing in my journal thinking or knowing that someone could potentially judge me or laugh at me. It's a reflection of themselves rather than me, I guess I could also say it's a projection. I'd have to research those two words to see which one fits, but since the topic is ignorance. Heck, I'll leave it. Yes, I am ignorant. As we all are. That's okay & that's human nature. We grow and learn as much as we can - or at least some of us do. The rest seem to just laugh at those of us trying.
To myself and you - keep writing. Keep learning. Damn those that laugh at us for trying because that means they're not and that's a them problem, not a me or you problem.
