Part Four: When Reports Rewrite Your Reality
There’s a moment that hits harder than most in this system — and it’s not always the courtroom or the meetings. Sometimes, it’s seeing your life described in black and white on a piece of paper… and not recognising yourself in it.
Reports are supposed to reflect facts. But in my experience, they often reflect interpretations. Opinions dressed as observations. Snapshots taken out of context, frozen in time, and printed with authority. And once it’s written, it becomes truth — at least to everyone reading it.
But here’s the reality: most of the people writing these reports haven’t lived a single day in my home. They’ve seen glimpses, brief interactions, maybe one or two visits. And somehow, from that, they craft a narrative that becomes “my story” — even when it’s not mine at all.
They say I seemed “agitated.” But they don’t write about the months of stress leading up to that moment.
They mention my child didn’t run into my arms — but not that we’d just been told we had five minutes left.
They note my tone. My body language. My tears. But not the reasons behind them.
It’s like being edited out of your own life and replaced with a version of you that fits their framework better. And the worst part? Once it’s written, it spreads. Between departments. Between professionals. Between meetings. That version of you travels, even if it’s wrong.
You can challenge it. You can write responses. You can beg to be heard. But it rarely carries the same weight. Because what’s “on file” becomes fact — even if it was never the truth.
This is what makes it so hard for parents to trust the system. When the written word is more powerful than your spoken truth. When a report can carry more influence than a lifetime of love. When someone who barely knows you gets to define who you are, and you’re left picking up the pieces of a version of you that doesn’t belong.
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