Climate change activist Greta Thunberg calls her Asperger’s syndrome a superpower
The Swedish teen notes that while it makes her a bit different, her passion for the environment comes down to seeing the world in a practical way
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg participates in a youth climate change protest in front of the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Greta Thunberg says her Asperger’s syndrome makes her “different”, but she considers it a “superpower”. Some people have criticised the teenage Swedish climate activist over the condition, which is a mild type of autism.
The 16-year-old 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”.
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She said she had not been open about her diagnosis in order to “hide” behind it, and that 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”.
Asperger’s syndrome was named after the Austrian doctor Hans Asperger. In the 1940s, he described some of its characteristics, including difficulties in social interaction and non-verbal communication, and reading body language. In 2013, Asperger’s was diagnosed as a type of autism.
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Tony Attwood, a world authority on Asperger’s, has said people diagnosed are “usually renowned for being direct, speaking their mind, being honest and determined, and having a strong sense of social justice”.
Greta was diagnosed four years ago. She has acknowledged that her passion for her climate crisis work was partly down to viewing the world in a practical way.
In July, Greta 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”.
Greta responded by tweeting that she was “deeply disturbed” by the “hate and conspiracy campaigns” run by climate deniers like Bolt.
Last Friday, Greta was joined by crowds of American teenagers at a protest outside the UN headquarters in New York following her transatlantic crossing.