Some of it you write for nobody.

Some of it you need out of your head and onto a page, and the last thing you want is somebody reading it. No handle on it, no replies, no salutes, nobody being supportive at you.

The Vault is that page. You write it, it shuts, and it stays shut.

Nobody reads it

Not other members. Not an administrator. Not us. No queue, no moderator, no notification going anywhere. It is the only thing on this site that nobody but you can open, and photographs go in stripped of their location like everything else.

We count that the Vault gets opened, and nothing else about it. Not which entry, not the title, not a word of what is in one — there is no way for us to reach any of that, which is the point of the paragraph above. We count it because a locked room nobody can measure is a locked room nobody can justify keeping.

Writing it down does something

People have put bad nights on paper for as long as there has been paper and nobody entirely agrees why it helps. You do not have to believe any of the theory to find it useful at two in the morning, and you do not have to be in a bad way to use it — a log, a diary, the thing you would have said if there had been anyone to say it to.

It is not treatment and it is not a substitute for one. If a night is worse than that, the numbers are here.

Let one out, or never

Every entry has one control on it and it does nothing until you press it. Shut is the default and stays the default; releasing is a decision about one entry, and there is no setting that opens the lot.

Write it down. Decide later, or never.