Personal Life is Better Shared with a Personal Diary than a Friend Part 1

Recognizing and talking about your feelings and emotions helps you understand yourself. It helps to heal hurtful feelings and relieve anxiety. However, everything cannot be shared with everybody. A friend, no matter how trustworthy, may not be the best person to share with because there are risks of him or her being a gossipmonger. Perceptual bias, critical judgment, or non-availability of a friend makes the idea of sharing personal thoughts and experiences very uncomfortable. It is better to share your personal life experiences with a diary because it allows you the ease of a confidential expression, without judging you, and helps in emotional management and self-development.

A diary is an extended version of you; however, a friend is an outsider. You may not be comfortable enough to share certain feelings with a friend because the feelings may be too personal. For instance, you may be edgy about sharing the way you feel about marriage. But, you can always “tell” your diary that you need a partner to share life with. A friend’s knowledge, judgment, and experience also make it difficult to share feelings. It is helpful at times to get advice from a friend, but usually a person wishes to be heard rather than to be advised. A friend that preaches and judges poses a big barrier to communication because you may find yourself being ridiculed or criticized. A diary provides an ease of self-expression without the idea of somebody watching, commenting, or finding out. Also, you can understand the context in which you write in your diary about a certain emotion, but your friend might not. Your feelings of temporary dislike and aggression can be misinterpreted; by a friend, to be signs of hate or enmity.

Sometimes, personal stories and experiences imply confidentiality. The confidentiality of your feelings is safer in a diary as compared to being shared with a friend. You cannot tell whether a friend can keep a secret. Girls usually like to share critically personal instances of infatuation, family problems, or sexual encounters. A friend, for the sake of gossip, might manipulate your words and spread rumors behind your back. The negative publicity cannot be undone. However, a diary can be protected for confidentiality in a couple of ways. You can securely lock it in a drawer or closet, hide it in a personal vault, or somewhere nobody can reach. A genius idea is to write a diary on a computer where it could be password protected for advanced security. You can always choose to destroy a diary to erase all records of an incident completely. For example, a girl may write about suffering an account of sexual harassment to relieve guilt and anxiety. Later, she may destroy her diary to erase all records. A diary may fall into wrong hands but it is safer to be in control of your information in a diary, instead of leaving it to a friend.