Your posts do seem like a combination of journal entry and written to be read by others. They are always interesting too. I'm sure your journal writing helped you develop your style.
Big bummer about those journals though.
I started writing simply to try to drum up followers on steem. It took many many months before anything I wrote was read, so I did at some point start writing just for myself. After a few months a haiku fan or two happened along, then Freewriters started reading my stuff. I had no idea I was a writer until the freewriters seemed to like what I wrote. Then I got really into it. Now I am taking a break it seems.