Notes from a Time Traveller by Elke Stevens

A reflection on the ASD journey.

She came back from the Seer, and she had been given the card of the Fool, not as a new beginning, but because 0 is the infinite, the constant renewal, the phoenix rising from the ashes again and again, returning to its own colours. The Fool allows us to be what we want to be, to wander from one chapter to the next without apology.

Our Time Traveller, Gentleman Jack, was folding through the pages of the century dictionary, revealing page by page the truth of her, a truth that has been surfacing over the last twelve months, a truth an autistic burnout could not hold back. It nudged her to embrace her divergence and acknowledge the path she could no longer deny. A year ago, university wasn’t even seen in the stars. She was surviving from day to day.

There were difficult moments. Institutions that misunderstood me. People who tried to translate me into something I was not. But with the help of others, I kept moving. I received my ASD diagnosis. I chose university. I started creating again, not out of survival, but because something in me finally insisted on being heard.

I cannot speak of restoration or respelling my narrative, but the meaning of my history has changed, and the view on my future has turned in a new direction, even if I don’t fully know where it is going. She no longer speaks with a passive voice. The Time Traveller has learned to answer for herself, to stand in her own sentences without waiting for someone else to speak for her. Her words still carry contradiction and confusion, and maybe that is simply part of who I am.

These days I find myself building websites, studying, writing philosophy at strange hours of the night. I smell flowers more often. I drink tea without rushing. And I carry myself with a spark of renewed confidence, that well‑recognised flare of Gentleman Jack.

© Elke T.B. Stevens 29/05/2026