Has one of your parents ever read your journal? If they did, you know how violating it feels.

In this story, a woman shares that her mom not only read her therapy journal, but thinks it’s her right to do so, since she’s paying for the sessions.

Yeah. It’s infuriating.

Let’s read the whole story and see what people think.

AITA for refusing to let my mom read my therapy homework even though she is paying for it?

So I (28F) started therapy about 5 months ago for anxiety, people pleasing and general “my family is a lot” stuff.

My mom (55F) offered to pay for the first year because my insurance is trash and I honestly wouldn’t have gone otherwise. I was super grateful.

The issue is that my mom has a very “if I pay for it, it’s mine” attitude.

Growing up that meant she would go through my phone, my room, even my laundry bc “I bought those clothes”.

I hated it, but I moved out at 19 and thought I kind of escaped that.

She also transferred this belief to her therapy sessions.

Fast forward to now.

My therapist sometimes gives me “homework” like journaling prompts, letters to my younger self, writing out things that happened in my house, etc.

Some of it is really raw and honestly does not paint my mom in a great light.

Not like “she is evil”, more like “she screamed a lot and made me feel like everything was my fault”.

Shortly, she would learn that nothing in the dynamic had changed.

Last week I left my therapy notebook on the kitchen table when I went to shower.

I am staying with my parents for a couple of months between apartments, so yeah, that was my bad.

When I came back, my mom was sitting there with the notebook open, reading.

She looked mad and kind of hurt at the same time.

She goes “So THIS is what you tell your therapist about me? After everything I’ve done for you?”

Then she demanded I let her read all of it “so she can defend herself” and said she has a right to know what she is paying for.

The argument soon reached a boiling point.

I took the notebook out of her hands and said “No, this is private, you do not get to be in my therapy.”

She started yelling that I was ungrateful, that I let some stranger “brainwash” me, that if she is paying, she needs to know what she’s paying for.

I snapped a bit and said “If you didn’t act like this maybe we wouldn’t have so much to talk about in therapy”.

Not my finest line, I admit.

My dad told us both to calm down and later suggested I “just show her the normal parts” so she feels better.

Enablers aside, other people in her life shared their opinions.

My younger brother texted me that I was kind of cruel to say that to her face but also said mom reading my stuff was “classic her”.

My boyfriend says my mom is way out of line and that I should offer to keep going to therapy but start paying it myself.

Even if that means cutting other expenses, just so she has zero excuse to push boundaries.

Now my mom is giving me the cold shoulder and making comments like:

“Don’t worry, I won’t read your little secret diary again” and “Guess I am not allowed to know my own daughter”.

She also told some relatives that I “hired a therapist to talk trash” about my family, so now I am getting weird messages about “forgiveness” and “not airing dirty laundry”.

Now she’s wondering if she should apologize to her mom.

I do feel bad that I hurt her feelings and I get that it must suck to realize your kid has all this bottled up stuff about you.

But at the same time, I really, really need a space that is just mine.

Therapy already helped me a lot and I don’t want to start editing myself in my own head because I am afraid someone will read it.

AITA?

Paying for the sessions is the least her mom can do. She could also try apologizing.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

Exactly.

It’s shocking.

Definitely not in the wrong.

She will be wasting her money, ironically.

Simple like that.

Someone shares how this feels.

No wonder she feels like a people pleaser.

She had to act like this to survive her home life.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.