Activist Greta Thunberg has spoken about her Asperger’s syndrome diagnosis after she was criticized over the condition, saying that it makes her “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 to “hide” behind it, but because she knew “many ignorant people still see it as an ‘illness,’ or something negative.”
Photo: AFP
“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 that it “sometimes makes me a bit different from the norm” and that she sees being different as a “superpower.”
Asperger’s syndrome was named after the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger who, in the 1940s, described some of its characteristics, including difficulties in social interaction, nonverbal communication and 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 that people diagnosed are “usually renowned for being direct, speaking their mind, 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 criticized her two-week trip across the Atlantic on a solar-powered yacht because, he said that “she refuses to fly and heat the planet with an airplane’s global warming gasses.”
Bolt repeatedly referred to Greta’s mental health, saying that she was “deeply disturbed.”
Thunberg responded by tweeting that she was “deeply disturbed” by the “hate and conspiracy campaigns” run by climate deniers such as Bolt.
On Friday, Thunberg was joined by crowds of US teenagers at a protest outside the UN headquarters in New York City following her transatlantic crossing.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was