I'm an experienced software engineer in a large company, where I've worked for about 8 years. My career aspiration has been to become an architect for quite some time, it's something I've pursued training in and I've made many meaningful contributions in architecture discussions within the company, especially after having gained so much domain, company, and system experience.
Traditionally this company does "roles" rather than "job titles", and three years ago I was happy to attain the role of domain architect for the area I work in. Then a few months later the head of the department reorganised, decided they only wanted one architect across the whole department rather than for individual domains, and awarded the position, as a job title rather than a role, to someone else.
I was extremely disappointed, it made the next couple of years pretty miserable for me, and I eventually transferred to a new department to avoid burning out last year.
At the team meeting to announce I was leaving, my boss started by saying how disappointed they had been my by decision to turn down the job of architect two years before. I was lost for words as that had been in no way what had happened, but I held myself together and asked around some colleagues afterwards. It turned out that this had been the official story they had been telling for the past two years, that I had turned down a job that everyone knew I wanted (and that they had never offered me), but nobody had questioned it enough to ask me directly about it.
I was told that management were really surprised that I did that at the time, and it retrospectively explains some odd interactions I had with people, especially whenever I brought up possible career development as an architect. I think this misinformation at the very least harmed my reputation and at worst actively harmed my career opportunities within the company.
However the time when it was claimed this happened was so long ago now (almost three years) that it feels weird to bring it up, especially now I'm more than 6 months into my new role, but it continues to eat at me that this happened. Is there any constructive way I can correct this, or at least fix some of the damage? I fear that by bringing it up I might make it worse, but if I don't find some kind of resolution I will have to move to another company for my own health.