For the adult survivor of incest, the evolution from victim to survivor occurs in complex and creative ways. Often journal writing can be a means of exposing and exploring past abuse. The process of journal writing is special in that it allows the adult survivor to break the silence and shame imposed by the perpetrator while remaining essentially invisible and safe. The journal text is a private, reconstructed world in which the text's speaker is also its audience. The act of writing in a journal is essentially performative because of this audience. This paper relies on a textual analysis of selected published journal excerpts to explicate the implied audience embedded in survivors' journals. An examination of implied audience is meaningful to initially understand how survivors thematize, contextualize, and work through past abuse. (37 references) (NB)