Greta
Thunberg responds to Asperger's critics: 'It's a superpower'
Teenage
climate activist responds to criticism, saying ‘when haters go after your looks
and differences ... you know you’re winning’
Alison
Rourke
Mon 2 Sep
2019 06.31 BST Last modified on Mon 2 Sep 2019 07.13 BST
Swedish
climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, in New York
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16,
in New York. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Greta
Thunberg has spoken about her Asperger’s syndrome diagnosis after she was
criticised over the condition, saying it makes her a “different”, but that she
considers it a “superpower”.
Thunberg,
the public face of the school climate strike movement said on Twitter that
before she started her climate action campaign she had “no energy, no friends
and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating
disorder.”
She said she
had not been open about her diagnosis of being on the autism spectrum in order
to “hide” behind it, but because she knew “many ignorant people still see it as
an ‘illness’, or something negative”.
“When haters go after your looks and
differences, it means they have nowhere left to go. And then you know you’re
winning!” she wrote, using the hashtag #aspiepower.
While
acknowledging that her diagnosis has limited her before, she said it “sometimes
makes me a bit different from the norm” and she sees being different as a
“superpower”.
Greta
Thunberg
✔
@GretaThunberg
· Aug 31, 2019
When haters go after your looks and
differences, it means they have nowhere left to go. And then you know you’re
winning!
I have
Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And -
given the right circumstances- being different is a superpower.#aspiepower
View image
on Twitter
Greta
Thunberg
✔
@GretaThunberg
I'm not
public about my diagnosis to "hide" behind it, but because I know
many ignorant people still see it as an "illness", or something
negative. And believe me, my diagnosis has limited me before. >
87.3K
11:46 PM -
Aug 31, 2019
Asperger’s
syndrome was named after the Austrian paediatrician, Hans Asperger, who, in the
1940s, described some of its characteristics, including difficulties in social
interaction and nonverbal communication, including difficulties reading body
language. In 2013, Asperger’s was folded into the wider diagnosis of autism
spectrum disorder.
Tony
Attwood, a world authority on Asperger’s, has said people diagnosed are
“usually renowned for being direct, speaking their mind and being honest and
determined and having a strong sense of social justice”.
Boys are
more widely diagnosed than girls.
Thunberg
was diagnosed four years ago. She has acknowledged that her passion for her
climate crisis work was partly down to viewing the world in stark terms.
In July, Thunberg
hit back at the Australian News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt for writing a deeply
offensive column that mocked her diagnosis.
He
criticised her two-week trip across the Atlantic on a solar-powered yacht
because, he said “she refuses to fly and heat the planet with an aeroplane’s
global warming gasses”.
Bolt
repeatedly referred to Greta’s mental health, saying she was “deeply
disturbed”.
Thunberg
responded by tweeting that she was “deeply disturbed” by the the “hate and
conspiracy campaigns” run by climate deniers like Bolt.
Greta
Thunberg
✔
@GretaThunberg
I am indeed ”deeply disturbed” about the fact
that these hate and conspiracy campaigns are allowed to go on and on and on
just because we children communicate and act on the science. Where are the
adults?
View image
on Twitter
166K
10:39 AM -
Aug 1, 2019
On Friday
Thunberg was joined by crowds of American teenagers at a protest outside the UN
headquarters in New York following her transatlantic crossing.
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