AITA for telling my aunt to get over what I wrote about her?
An 18-year-old woman revisited a family drama involving a private journal she kept as a pre-teen. The journal, left behind accidentally, was read by her aunt (34F) and other family members without her permission. In it, she vented about them, calling her aunt “bitchy” after a stressful hospital trip.
Years later, during a family discussion, the journal was brought up, and the aunt criticized her for the comments, with the family agreeing. The young woman told them to “get over it,” citing her age at the time and the family’s toxic treatment of her as context. This response further alienated the family. read the original story below…
‘Â AITA for telling my aunt to get over what I wrote about her?’
I ( 18F ) and my Aunt ( 34F ) were talking about old family drama the other day and my old Journal was brought up. For context, I was 11-13 and wrote in that thing constantly. I’d write about school, family, etc. Anything that upset me so I could get it out and feel less stressed.
My Aunt in 2019 randomly had her water break one night and we rushed to the hospital. While we were all sitting in the waiting room, I wrote about how my Aunt was slightly rude to me while we were rushing to the hospital and said she was being bitchy.
Well after my little cousin was born, my grandma took us back to my great Grandma’s house. I originally thought I was staying at my great Grandma’s but a mix up happened and I was sent home. Well I accidentally left my journal at my great Grandma’s.
I figured I’d grab it once I got back to my great Grandma’s and blew it off. A few days later, my Aunt sent me an angry text saying how she read my journal and said she and the rest of the family are pissed that I talked badly about them.
She said they read through my whole journal ( I did not give them permission to do that ) and they were telling my Dad. After my Dad punished me, he kept the journal ( he’d constantly make up lies about what I wrote and said I wrote that I would kill him which is a blatant lie ).
Now flashforward to the important bit. Me and the rest of the family were together and were talking about old family drama and my journal was brought up. My aunt mentioned it and said I was a real A-hole for talking bad about everyone in the family and the rest of my family agreed.
I told her and the rest of the family to get over. It happened several years ago and I was a child when it happened and holding a grudge against a child was petty considering she and the rest of the family are grown,
and also said that her and the rest of the family treat me like garbage and let my dad treat me like garbage so of course I’d talk bad about them and call them out for their crap. My aunt called me an A-hole and the family got cold and distant towards me. So AITA?
Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:
peggingpinhead − NTA. Nothing else matters past “they read my private journal.” That’s for you alone, and they breached your trust by reading it.
your family has more red flags than an airplane hanger. i’d say they are acting like 12yrs, but 12yrs aren’t that cruel.
bentscissors − Your awful family is never going to acknowledge that they’re awful and they’re certainly not going to apologize for it. All you can do is resolve never to carry that energy and release it into the world like they do. NTA then and definitely not now.
fallingintopolkadots − NTA. You were a child, and this was your private diary. They had no right to punish you, and to hold those words against you, when you were a child venting privately in a journal they had no permission to read.
Patient_Meaning_2751 − I’m so sorry your family sucks this bad. Clearly you had the gift of seeing people for who they really are even as a child. They haven’t improved with age.
lilolememe − NTA What a**hole reads someone’s diary? Sounds like you may be going LC with your family soon. No one needs that drama. She’s a 34 yo woman calling an 18 year old an a**hole?? I hate that people like this procreate.
CoraCecilia − NTA. Ask yourself: what are you getting out of the relationship with your “family”? A little girl used a journal to deal with her feelings so that she could privately write down things that bothered her. This is a healthy way to process emotions.
What is not healthy is grown people violating that trust, reading the journal, and then using it as a weapon against a child. Not only should your family “get over” it; they should apologize to you and recognize that there was a reason you NEEDED to journal in the first place.
Ghost3022 − NTA. I have had my granddaughter’s journal (she’s 8) for over a year. Never once have I read it. She’s 8, and I still haven’t read it because she has never given me permission to.
five_am_nz − So what a child is not allowed a healthy private nondestructive mature way to work out their conflicts and issues in their head? Whole family sucks here, they sound very toxic and immature
volumeoforgottenlore − You’re obviously not the a**hole. Your family sucks. Cut them out.
PhilosophicalWarPig − NTA. Your family are assholes though. End of.
Was she justified in defending herself, or should she have handled the situation differently? How would you react if a private journal was read without your consent? Share your opinions in the comments below!
Same thing happened to me, I was 9/10 as at that time and my older sister came across my journal and took a photo and sent to all my other siblings and my dad. They also saw where I wrote about my rape when I was six but instead they turned it all against me and said all the bad things I wrote about them will happen to me and that the rape story was made up so my other sister can break up with her fiance 🥺