Greta Thunberg is quite open to the fact that she has Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism. In an interview with DER SPIEGEL, she said that without this diagnosis she might never have started her strike for more climate protection. Meanwhile, she is at the forefront of a worldwide movement.
But public attention has also led to the 16-year-old - often on the Internet - being abused. Brandenburg's leading AfD candidate Andreas Kalbitz had described her as a "pigtail-faced moon face girl".
Often, their opponents, who can not stand up to climate protection, shoot at Greta Thunberg's diagnosis in order to offend her personally. The young activist now addressed her with a message in the social networks.
"I have Asperger and that means that sometimes I am a bit different from the norm," she wrote on Facebook. "But under the right circumstances, it's a superpower to be different."
"When haters attack you for your looks and otherness, it means they have nothing left, and then you know you win!" Thunberg continued.
Asperger is a developmental disorder that may involve, among other things, difficulties in social interaction and the training of intense special interests.
Earlier her diagnosis had restricted her, Thunberg remembers on Facebook. Before her school strike, she had no energy and no friends and talked to hardly anyone. "I was sitting home alone with an eating disorder." But this time is over now. "I've found meaning in a world that sometimes seems pointless to so many people."
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A year ago, the then completely unknown 15-year-old sat down with a protest sign in front of the parliament in Stockholm and called for the "school strike for the climate". Since then she has experienced what the power of a single girl can do.