Has anyone found and read their journal after they passed away?

[weddingcat]

My mom passed away in November, followed by my dad in January. I was pretty low contact, due to their actions.
I went to clear out the house and had not been there in over 7 years. It was a disaster. Worse than I thought it would be - holes in walls, papers everywhere, really dirty.
Surprising since my parents were always clean. My dad had dementia and my mom his full time caretaker. It was hard to see. I stumbled across some journals that say do not open.
Half of me feels like maybe if I read them, it will help me understand who they were - why they cut me off for literally no reason for years on end when I tried to have a relationship.
The other half of me knows it will probably just cause more confusion and I won't be able to "unsee" what I possibly will read. Just wondering if anyone has found a journal after someone died and read it.

[The Inner Light]

I have not, but that's a very interesting situation.  My condolences on the loss of both of your parents.

[moglow]

Hello - you have my sympathies, both for the loss of your parents and the earlier loss that brought you where you now are.

I think curiosity would get the better of me. I might not read all of it but perhaps enough to try and get a feel for who s/he was. Yes, it might raise questions but I suspect you have a gracious plenty of those already. It might also answer a few and put your mind at ease in some small way. And yet - they've left you this legacy of doubt and pain. You could just employ a good hot fire and burn away your old life, a cleansing ritual if you will.

Remember - whatever is in there is not your stuff. It doesn't change who you are, in any way whatsoever.

[D.]

I remember an online movie with a similar situation.  The protagonist had someone translate the "memoir" of a deceased grandfather...it did help bring clarity to the truth, although ultimately not pleasant...the grandfather seemed to be NPD.  The journal was a lot of arrogant, misogynistic ramblings.  I wonder if you know anyone that is not related that could help?  Either way it seems there is an opportunity there for some form of closure.  It may hurt for a moment, but later help with closure?  Or the destruction of the paper in some way now.  I trust you to figure out your best solution.  Personally, I would probably read but in conjunction with support of a close friend/husband/therapist.

[Free2Bme]

weddingcat,

My condolences for your losses, mostly for the loss of relationship with your parents.  Grief becomes really complex when there is so much unfinished business.

It is really soon since their passing.  If it were me, I would buy myself some time by sticking them away for a while, you might have more clarity a little ways down the road.

Do have a T?  If so, you could counsel about this and then read it in session, maybe have T pre-screen it for you.

You could white board the pros/cons to determine the best course of action.

[Pepin]

Many years ago as a teenager I found a letter in the attic that was either a draft or never sent that my late mother had written to a friend.  I couldn't understand it at the time but as a middle aged adult now, I can understand what she was writing.  It took me years to realize that the letter was a cry for help in her marriage.  She married an abuser who isolated her and she was exhausted from being a mother.  This helped me to understand that she was also a victim.  And if I could get my hands on that letter written on yellow legal paper....I would hand it over to my father' attorney at the time of his death. 

[Call Me Cordelia]

What a haunting thing to have read. What would your father's attorney have done with that information, Pepin?

Weddingcat, my gut response is to let the dead bury their dead. It's marked do not open, they are gone. Also, if they were NPD/cluster B there's no reassurance that what you read in the journals is actually true. Simply snapshots of their emotional state which could have varied widely, even regarding the same situation. People might put things in a journal they would never express to someone else, for good reason. I agree with you that it's just as likely you would find more pain between those pages. Insight, possibly, but it would have a heavy emotional cost. You are the important one here. I'm very sorry for your grief and I wish you peace. It must have been very hard to go back after such a long time and being alone with the physical and emotional mess they left behind. I hope you have good support by your side as you deal with the estate and a beautiful life of your own on the other side of it.

[Duck]

This is just me, but if they say do not open, I would not open. Unlike our PD parents and their enablers, we are the people who respect people's wishes.

My mom read my diary when I was in 8th grade and freaked out about what it said. Pretty soon, I figured out nothing I wrote on paper was safe, something which haunts me to this day. I have a great fear of dying and people going through things I don't want them to see. I remember reading that Mother Theresa asked for her papers to be burned after her death, but the people she asked to do this did not obey. I realized it is important to burn your own papers before death. I would really like to write my thoughts down on paper and keep them, but I know it's not safe. Nowadays, if I write something down, I shred it.

If I found my parent's journal after their death and it said do not open, I would dispose of it safely for them unread. Not every wish of a dead person must be obeyed, but this one I consider sacred.

It is true if you read it, you could not unsee what you saw. Also, if your parent was unwell, reading what they wrote would not change reality.

This is my perspective. Of course, you will know best what is good for you.

[ArmadilloKate]

Morally, the answer is easy...you probably should not read it. In reality, not at all easy. If you peek, or if you read the whole thing, don't beat yourself up. There's an argument to be made you deserve to understand since you had to live with their unfathomable actions. There's also an argument to be made the only one who stands to be hurt by your action now is you. There's also an argument to be made that this is not a lot different than when relatives or friends of the deceased share secrets with the surviving relative to help them understand or have closure.

Two similar scenarios I faced, not identical:

1. When me and my sis were kids my sis found and read my mom's journal and then insisted I look at parts of it, for good reason. It was painful and I've never gotten over it.

2. I never knew my dad thank goodness for that. But as an adult I tried to find him. Instead I found a death record from several years prior. At one point I told my mom and she wanted to see the proof so I ordered the death certificate. That opened a can of worms and i ended up ordering the autopsy report and the photos. It was clear he would not have wanted me to see any of that. It was an invasion of privacy.

Legally I had the right as his offspring biologically, but relationaly not really. I still figured I had the right... he owed me that much at least, the only way I could find out any information about who he was was through the autopsy report. I even called the Coroner to see what else she could tell me.

There's a drive to understand what we come from and why things were the way they were. I think that's natural. There's no easy answer. There is the high likelihood you will be hurt by what you read. Actually 100% you will be, given what you've shared here. And you won't know if it is a healing or damaging hurt until you go through it.

I'll I will say is what I read was painful, damaging, clarifying, and healing because it allowed me to see the complex and ugly truth and to have a story to go with the insanity of being raised and in a forced relationship with people who have a personality disorder. I would do it again. Not proud but I would.

[Sojourner]

Give yourself some time to grieve and heal from your parents loss and managing the close out of their affairs and estate.  Put the journals and any other items that you may or may not be ready to investigate away in a taped up box and set it aside for a few months.  Grieve, heal a bit, think on how you wish to proceed.

I recently cleared out and sold the house I grew up in.  My father passed away in the late 1980s, my mother passed away more recently.  My mother kept all the old paperwork, notes, letters, bills.  Pretty much anything that was a paper record got saved.  I went through it all before the estate auction people came to organize the sale.  Over 40 bankers boxes went to the shredders.  And about 5 bankers boxes of papers,letters,  carbon copies of letters written, notes my parents left for each other during arguments, old military records, photographs, negatives, photo albums etc. came home with me.  I let them all sit for many months before starting to go through them.  I found angry notes left between my parents or between my father and my siblings.  They were painful to read, they revealed nothing new to me, they dredged up old memories of some unhappy times in my childhood.  I stopped reading them after the first few and just put them directly in the shred pile. 

So while I did not find an actual journal there were many revealing letters and notes but they brought me no better understanding and no joy to look at and I shredded most without reading them when seeing the first few was not a helpful experience.

The huge positive from the items I saved is all the thousands of old photographs and negatives that I am scanning to digital and cataloging.  These have brought me much happiness.

[Cat of the Canals]

This is just me, but if they say do not open, I would not open. Unlike our PD parents and their enablers, we are the people who respect people's wishes.

This was one of my thoughts, and I think I'd feel this way even if they weren't specifically marked "Do not read." Though I have to admit, I'm a incredibly curious type of person, so I can also imagine the draw of wanting to read them and maybe even doing so in a moment of weakness, despite feeling strongly that I shouldn't. I'd like to think I'd destroy them without reading and thus eliminate the temptation.

Again, this isn't exactly the same, but my BIL died earlier this year. PDmil has gone through his things with a fine tooth comb, and even though he didn't specifically address this issue before he died, I know he would not have wanted that. It makes me angry that she's continuing to be so invasive even after he's dead.

[weddingcat]

I'd like to thank each of you so much for your replies. They are definitely helpful and have given me some things to think about.

Free2bme - yes I do have a T and probably would need some help deciding if/how I should read it and after the fact if I choose to.

Sojourner - It was helpful to read your experience and I'm sorry you had to read hurtful letters. I feel as though what I read will be hurtful as this journal was probably an emotional dumping ground and not the full picture.
I do have some pictures - although i was sad to find out that most of my childhood pictures are gone.  I do have some and a couple of slides but nowhere near the volume that we used to have.
Random ones were scattered throughout the house in the most random of places. All  of the albums that I remember are gone.
Even my parent's wedding album is gone. One of them must have thrown it away. It's very sad. 

Thanks again for listening and for your insight.

[moglow]

Oh wow - that sounds painful just by itself. Maybe pack away the journal until it's not so raw ... Or bonfire without a peek.

[Boat Babe]

Personally I would read them but that's just who I am. I'd want to try and understand (still  for goodness's sake) but I bet I'd be disappointed. The chances of their inner monologue being any different from their behaviour is slight, to say the least. If you do read the, as advised above, do it in your own time with a healthy dose of self compassion.

[Tribe16]

I would read it. My mind is always trying to understand and make sense of things. But I would be super "self-carish" with myself beforehand, curl up with my favorite beverage, have a journal ready to take notes and remind myself it's ok to take a break or stop.

[JenniferSmith]

Years ago, a journal that my mother kept during my childhood somehow ended up in a box of my childhood belongings (meaning, I found it when I was an adult, not a child).  It only spanned several months of her life, but it was fascinating to see her state of mind at the time. Confirmed many of my impressions about her.