Truth & Advocacy By Calvin-Lee Hardie – Inverness

There’s a moment — and maybe only those who’ve lived it know — where you stop trusting your own reflection.

Because when the internet creates a version of you and repeats it enough times, you begin to feel split.

Not in public.

In private.

In the mirror.

In your own thoughts.

In the places no tweet can reach.

You wonder: Is that how they all see me now?

And worse: Is that who I’ve become?

This is the part they never write about. The part after the damage, when the cameras stop flashing but the echo stays. The part where you start editing yourself — not for safety, but for survival.

I lived there for longer than I’ll ever admit.

I lived in that internal exile — between the man I know I am and the one they said I was.

But I didn’t stay there.

Because somewhere in the fog, I found something sharper than shame.

I found clarity.

They broke the truth into pieces.

Shattered it for engagement.

Fractured it for reach.

Pulled a moment out of a lifetime, twisted it, and called it journalism.

And for a while, I was too stunned to respond.

But then I realised:

If they can fracture it, I can reconstruct it.

Not with rage.

Not with emotion.

But with facts.

With records.

With structure.

So I started the process — cold, focused, and relentless.

• I filed Article 17 GDPR erasure requests.

• I documented every date, timestamp, comment, and edit.

• I preserved posts they thought I’d never see.

• I matched stories with metadata.

• I mapped the damage and wrote my own forensic history.

They thought I was broken.

But I was building.

Building a case.

Building a narrative.

Building a version of me that couldn’t be ignored — because it was legally backed, personally lived, and ruthlessly accurate.

Let me tell you something:

They want you messy.

They want you loud, reactive, emotional — because then you look guilty.

They don’t want you organised.

They don’t want you informed.

They don’t want you methodical.

But that’s exactly what I became.

Because when they gave me no platform to speak, I built one.

When they refused to publish corrections, I wrote my own.

When the system pretended to be neutral, I showed it proof of harm — in their own language.

I spoke softly — with court filings.

I shouted — in structured paragraphs.

I screamed — through submission forms and privacy violations.

And still, I never let go of the truth.

This isn’t about winning a fight.

It’s about restoring a soul.

It’s about knowing that when the world forgets you’re human, you remind them — not by begging for understanding, but by making the truth impossible to ignore.

This is what survival looks like after they ruin your name:

• Not rebranding.

• Not apologising.

• Not fading away.

It’s reconstruction.

Of self.

Of dignity.

Of narrative.

Piece by piece.

Word by word.

Page by page.

I’m still putting it together.

But I’ve come too far to stop now.

And I’m bringing the truth with me.

Not their version.

Mine.