I read my daughter’s diary
This is a throwaway account.
To start off, I’m not looking for any diagnosis. We already have that covered.
My daughter, “Becca” (I’m using pseudonyms) keeps a diary to write in. For years I respected her privacy but one day about a year ago she came to me and her father and tells us she thinks she’s depressed and wants to see a therapist. My husband laughed it off but I asked her why she thought she was sad and she wouldn’t tell me anything. So I told her no, and she had a good life and nothing to be sad about. She seemed upset by that but since she wasn’t telling me anything, there was nothing I could do for her.
But I couldn’t get it out of my head. She didn’t seem very different as she’s always been shy and quiet. So I decided to read her diary (well, several of them; she keeps them all through the years) when she was at school and was shocked at what I found. I won’t get into detail but she wrote often how much she hated me, how I was a villain in her story. I was just parenting how I had been taught though. Things seemed to continue along that vein for a year when she wrote about some harmful thoughts she had been having and I decided that even if there wasn’t a real reason for her to be depressed, clearly she was struggling with some dark thoughts and I got her a therapist. I have continued reading her diaries to monitor her. My husband agreed with my actions, though he didn’t read them himself.
The other night Becca and I were having an argument and I finally told her that I have been reading her diaries and that I would do it again, that I was in the right as her parent because she wouldn’t tell me what was going on. Becca looked so hurt and started crying, saying that I betrayed her because I had promised I would never read her diaries when she first started writing. Now she won’t talk to me but I know she’ll eventually get over it one day. I love her and would do anything for her, so while I’m sad it hurt her, I know that ultimately I helped her. I just had to get this off my chest though.
If anyone has any idea of how to get her to understand, I’m open to suggestions. Thank you.
ETA to answer common sentiments: I know it’s an illness, my sister in law and mother in law both had it, but I just thought there had to be something in her life that she couldn’t handle and she wasn’t telling me. But her diary is just full of how much she hates me, she calls me a bitch and more in those diaries. I know I’m not a perfect parent but still, I’m trying.
And *I* wasn’t the one who laughed at her, that was my husband, and I told him that he wasn’t being helpful and to shit up. I was really trying to listen to my child and not dismiss her like he did.
UPDATE: this post gave me a lot to think about. It actually made me happy, because I am the daughter in this post who was betrayed by their mom this way. I tried to make it sound like my mom without going over the top (she would absolutely be attacking people here but I didn’t want to do that) and to see so many people saying that they believed me, that they would have gotten me help, made me happy but sad because that wasn’t how my life went. Except for the people who thought it was AI, fuck AI. Generative AI is ruining our planet.
I didn’t give an age in this post but I went to talk to my parents when I was 12, and didn’t know til I was 14 what my mom was doing. And I still can’t write to this day, except kinda here. I had hoped sharing this would make any adult who is thinking of doing something similar woukd stop and think because I saw a similar post recently and it made me angry and upset to hear that mothers keep doing this stupid shit.
If you have any questions I’ll try to answer them below but I’m trying to keep this anonymous still.
For reference, I am in my mid thirties now. No, my mom still believes she was in the right to this day, but I think she feels guilty about it. Why? Because my mother is the reason why I have multiple mental health disorders and still struggle to this day.