Absent-minded

Imagine the following:

You are in an elementary school class in the public education system. The lessons you will learn in this class will be crucial for determining your future success –or failures– for the rest of your life. Although the content of the class is elementary, it is standardised and mandatory for all students to complete. You attend class every day diligently, attentively listening to the teacher and following his every instruction. You maintain satisfactory grades, but other students seem to excel despite hardly even trying. Still, as long as you do not fail, there is no reason to worry.

One day, you feel exhausted from your relentless efforts to keep up with school, so you decide to fake an illness to convince your parents to let you stay home. At first, they reprimand you for skipping school for the third time this month when your grades are not excellent, and they do not understand how you can be struggling despite your siblings performing well. Your mother chastises you for what she sees as a poor work ethic, and your father harangues you for your total absent-mindedness with your work. Your family does not understand you. No one seems to understand you. You plead profusely to stay home, and your parents finally relent as they have lost hope in you at this point.

For a brief moment in time, you are finally at peace. All by yourself in that room, you have no expectations which you are expected to fulfil. You observe in hindsight how foolish it has been for you to try so hard in your studies when they actually do not make sense or matter to you at all. You decide to let yourself take it easy and follow whatever feels natural.

However, the strident voice of your subconscious thoughts (and your concerned parents) reminding you of your obligations eventually wins, and you drag yourself to school the next day. You come to class and realise the room is silent except for the shuffling of the teacher passing out exam papers to each student. 

You sit down at your desk and eye the exam that has been placed before you. Most of the questions appear familiar, but there ostensibly have been some new questions about concepts you never learned because you simply were absent yesterday when they were covered. You hear your heartbeat pound in your ears as you realise you have no idea what you are reading. You frantically rack your brains for potential answers, anything to write down, but your hand refuses to move the pencil. The words on the page begin to blur incomprehensibly together. From your peripheral vision, you notice your surrounding classmates smirking, and you know it is because you are struggling with seemingly rudimentary questions. They all know the obvious answers, but you have no idea where to begin. Tears well up in your eyes as you feel the shame growing within you and the humiliation of everyone’s eyes on you. You feel like a stranger; an unknown; an alien, and you know it is all because you were absent-minded.

Now replace the school system with societal expectations, and you have a vague idea of what it is like to be autistic.