Notes from a Time Traveller by Elke Stevens

The wind here doesn’t ask for permission.
It simply arrives fast, forceful, unrelenting, carving through stone and skin alike.

When I first came to Orkney, I thought the silence would heal me. I imagined the cliffs would hold me; the tides would teach me to breathe again. And in some ways, they have. But healing isn’t peaceful. It’s a storm dressed in stillness because truth does not play dress up!

And here, in this wild and watching place, the unmasking began.

Not metaphorically. Not gradually.
I mean, I began to fall apart, and it just dropped!

There’s a difference between knowing you are autistic and embodying that truth. Between privately understanding your difference and publicly naming it. There’s a fear that comes with saying it out loud. A kind of tremble, like pulling off layers of wet clothing in a cold room, necessary, but sharp.

When I first began telling people, in some cases, I felt the tone shift. Not loudly. Not rudely.
But in the quiet.
The way someone’s shoulders pull back just slightly.
The way their eyes slide away, unsure of where to land.
The little pauses that hang too long.
“Why now?” they ask. “Why not sooner?”

And I want to tell them,
Because I over-identified with the mask for too long.
Because the mask became too heavy.
Because I could no longer hold it together.
Because holding it together meant losing my body. My breath. My joy.

Because eventually, something inside me whispered, Stop.

And I did.

But I didn’t expect this part. The judgment. The discomfort. The way people flinch when you name your pain.

As though honesty is impolite.
As though difference is a disturbance.
As though the unmasking is a threat.

I’ve had meltdowns in car parks. In kitchens. On long walks by the sea.
Not tantrums. Not drama. Not harm to another.
Just the body saying: “No more pretending.”
Just a need to connect and decompress.
Just the nervous system unspooling after decades of compression.

And every time, I rise. But it’s not heroic. It’s necessary.

Even here, surrounded by mist, stone, and sky, where the wind sounds older than language, I still hear the echoes of shame. And I choose, again and again, to stand up, even as I’m falling.

I speak, not to soothe others, not to bend my voice for your comfort, but to be free.

Because I have fought too long to silence myself again.

Because Orkney taught me this:
The wild doesn’t apologise for being wild.
And neither will I.

I will not long forsake myself nor will I abandon myself.

©️Elke T.B. Stevens 06/06/25