A hundred moments in autism - Terrence Oblong, Communism and Tudor England

Autists frequently get into trouble for saying things they’re not supposed to, breaking unwritten rules and mores we have no way of knowing the existence of. I will doubtless use many examples of the multitude of mischief I have managed unintentionally over the course of these ‘moments’.  But my earliest examples were at school, where I was seemingly in constant disputes with some of my teachers. 

When I was about eight years old, I was accused of being a communist.   

We had been studying Tudor England.  We had been studying Tudor England for what seemed an extraordinarily long time. We had done lessons on King Henry VIII’s wives. We had done lessons on the great palaces where the Tudor elite lived. We had done lessons on the great banquets they ate in these palaces. We had done lessons on the sumptuous clothes the king and his entourage wore.  

I was getting bored, oh so bored, with this never-ending series of lessons on the Tudors. Besides which, I couldn’t help feeling there was something missing. One day, at the start of the lesson, when it had transpired that yes, we would be doing the fucking Tudors again, I braved putting my hand up.  

“Excuse me Miss,” I said meekly, in my best Oliver Twist voice. “My family never owned great houses, what were their lives like?” 

The teacher went ballistic. She went completely off her trolly, I rem, ember her shouting and screaming at me for what seemed forever. Amongst other things I remember her calling me a communist, and she made me stand outside the classroom for the rest of the lesson, the only time such a punishment was ever used on anyone in our class.

I had no idea what a communist was, nor did I understand what I had done wrong.  

Our Tudor lessons thankfully ended not long after this, but I had stopped asking questions in class after this incident. Where possible I avoided answering questions as well. Or speaking, wearing bright clothing, saying something stupid, saying something clever, needing the toilet during lessons, or doing anything at all that would focus attention on me. My childhood was mostly spent waiting for my childhood to end.