Ok!
@vapros and anyone else interested:
I am pretty confident we have it set up now so that only the thread starter can reply to their own threads in the Journals section!
Basically bought an add-on that would allow different permission sets based on the forum.
Thing is, I had to set it up for each user group, so I have it set for
Verified Member
Registered Users
New Member
Non-Registered Users
Suspended Users
I think that covers most or all of them but please let me know if anyone is able to reply to someone else's thread in Journals so I can go back and look at the settings, thank you!