J. HAL WILSON

At first, the entries are innocuous. They seem like the usual parent-child conflicts. Eventually, though, the whole of them paint a dark picture.

I chose to start with this one from just before the sixth grade, although a couple of liminal entries predate this. Contextually, an unmarried cousin of mine (name redacted) had become pregnant. My father, while bashing her to my mother in my presence, decided to preemptively bash me, too.

I did not yet understand why he was so fixated on my potential sexual behavior, although there had been some telling comments prior to this entry. I was 11.

12 August 1988

Dear Diary,
Dad thinks I’ll go out and get pregnant and smoke, drink and be on drugs. Just cause P**** had sex twice, that doesn’t mean I will. When they were talking about her, he said, “I know Ginny’ll do that someday when she’s not married.” I think sex is disgusting! I’d never smoke, drink, or be on drugs!