Greta Thunberg's mother speaks out on daughter's autism and past eating disorder: 'She was slowly disappearing'
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Greta Thunbergās mother is opening up about her daughterās struggles, including an eating disorder that almost required the young girl to be hospitalized.
In the familyās new book, Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis, the Swedish environmental activistās mother, Swedish opera singer Malena Ernman, details everything from her daughterās autism and eating disorder to panic attacks and bullying at school, the Observer reports.
āShe was slowly disappearing into some kind of darkness,ā Ernman says. āShe stopped playing the piano. She stopped laughing. She stopped talking. And she stopped eating.ā
Rapidly losing weight and only eating small amounts of rice, avocado and gnocchi, Thunberg had lost over 20 pounds from her small frame, and could no longer climb stairs.
āAfter two months of not eating Greta has lost almost 10kg, which is a lot when you are rather small to begin with,ā writes Ernman, according to an extract published by the British newspaper. āHer body temperature is low and her pulse and blood pressure clearly indicate signs of starvation. She no longer has the energy to take the stairs and her scores on the depression tests she takes are sky-high. We explain to our daughter that we have to start preparing ourselves for a stay at the hospital, where itās possible to get nutrition and food without eating, with tubes and drips.ā
Thunberg also dealt with extensive bullying at school, being wrestled on the playground and hiding in the bathroom to cry. Despite her struggle, the school was unsympathetic, says Ernman.
āItās Gretaās own fault, the school thinks; several children have said repeatedly that Greta has behaved strangely and spoken too softly and never says hello,ā she writes.
Doctors diagnosed Thunberg with āhigh-functioningā autism, which Ernman describes as Aspergerās, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Around the same time as her diagnosis, Thunberg was struck by the climate change crisis after seeing a film in school.
āGreta canāt reconcile any of this with any of what she has just seen,ā her mother writes. āShe saw what the rest of us did not want to see. It was as if she could see our CO2 emissions with her naked eye.ā
She soon began protesting outside the Swedish prime ministerās office, even though it was clearly taking an emotional toll on the young girl. But her passion for the cause also invigorated Thunbergās desire to live a full life, and she moved to a new school and started to eat again.
āWhat happened to Greta in particular canāt be explained simply by a psychiatric label,ā says Ernman. āIn the end, she simply couldnāt reconcile the contradictions of modern life.ā
Despite her fame, Ernman recognizes that Greta deals with an extensive amount of criticism, particularly online. The family received death threats on social media, and was even delivered excrement through the mail.
āShe is mocked by anonymous troll accounts, by right-wing extremists. And she is mocked by members of parliament,ā says Ernman. āBut thatās no surprise.ā
Related: Greta Thunberg Has Been Nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyle's newsletter.