Volume 10 Issue 9 September, 2019
DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER
Recently a 16 year old burst on to our TV screens. She voiced her concerns on the climate change crisis looming large over the world and chose a succinct phrase of “how dare you” to show case her angst. The audiences, however, were divided.
The quickest searches made by the uninitiated about her on the internet found pages dedicated to her clinical diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome with OCD with Selective Mutism. It now became easy to explain each of her behaviours. Her parents faced her brunt up front before the world got to see it…They were coerced into veganism, giving upon flight travel and taking up cycling. The truant youngster later upstaged her protests outside of the Swedish parliament for an entire academic year demonstrating her inflexibility in thinking. Her narrowed field of interest saw her making it to documentaries and world’s fanciest lists. When she brought on a condescending facial expression as a negligent world leader walked in at the UN Summit, it emphasized to us intellectuals, the need for social skills training in people like her who have deficits in social perception. Once her case was deconstructed, it was and is quite easy to take pot-shots at the mindset of her unscrupulous parents who seem to be riding high on her organized claim to fame.
All said and done, most of us missed the focal point. She was a child asking for help against a problem that should seem more personal than distant. Her voice choked with emotions is not a measure of distress due to contamination obsessions! Why must it be so hard for us to see people beyond their clinical labels? Is it a matter of difficulty in trusting what a person with a psychiatric illness has to say otherwise? The example of Greta Thunberg stands true to the point raised.
“The world must need all kinds of thinkers-visual thinkers, pattern thinkers and verbal thinkers”, said Dr. Temple Grandin, an American professor in Animal Science having lived her life with Autism herself.
