Before I share individual experiences, I want to set context.
Not emotion.
Not detail.
Simply the timeline those experiences grew inside.
I was born in 1981.
By the end of 2025, social services will have been present in my life — directly or indirectly — for 44 years.Of those years, 36 involved active, known involvement.
A further 9 involved undisclosed recording and reporting, without my knowledge at the time.
Taken together, this amounts to approximately 82% of my life.
This isn’t shared for shock.
It’s shared for understanding.
Stories do not exist in isolation.
They are shaped by time, systems, and repetition — often long before anyone hears them spoken aloud.
This post is not a story.
It is context.
The experiences will come ~ slowly, carefully, and in their own time.
For now, it matters simply to name the ground they stand on.
— The Girl Speaks
This page exists to witness what files cannot.
thegirlspeaks.uk 