Nathalia Gomes de Oliveira

I think that my first internship in law was really remarkable. When I realized that I had interest in Tax Law, I started to look for internship in this field, and I was hired by a small tax litigation office during my second semester of Law School. However, I had no idea what a law intern did, as I said before, I had never stepped into a law office. All I remember from this year is feeling overwhelmed. I couldn’t understand anything of what was going on around me: I didn’t know how an office was supposed to function, how I was expected to behave, how I should navigate between colleagues and bosses, or what topics were adequate to discuss with the team. I was lost.

Since I was very young at the time, most of my job consisted of doing the so-called “outside work”. There was no “digital law proceeding”, so everything had to be handled directly at the Public Agencies. This meant that I spent my time filling appeals, consulting files, and talking to court clerks. Since lawyers and older interns were more qualified to do the “internal work”, such as writing and rehearsing, my job was solving simpler things by the streets.

Unfortunately, I only discovered all of this when I was already working. Until them, I naively believed that all I would do was reading, studying, and writing about Tax Law. My job primarily consisted of talking to unfamiliar people throughout the day, asking them for their services, persuading them, and creating bonds with them. In short, all that was expected from me to succeed in this task was using soft skills. However, these skills are a challenge for autistic people. Sometimes, we lack very basic social skills, such as reading social cues, making small-talk, or even knowing which tone to use in each interaction. While most neurotypical people learn these skills at a young age, we, instead, have to learn them rationally and consciously, in such way that we spend our lives observing the world, training, learning from others, and mimicking their behavior.

To cut a long story short: I had to learn this new set of abilities from the scratch, and I needed to do this in real time. When I look back to that year, it feels like I was traveling in a country without knowing the language or the habits of its inhabitants. It was by far the loneliest year of my life, not because there were no people around me, but because I was absolutely alone trying to understand a new world. I had no one to talk about my anxieties, my doubts, my insecurities, or to vent about my innumerous flaws at that time. It was just me versus a brave new world.

What’s even crazier is realizing that I was only 19 years old at the time. My diagnosis came later, only when I was 24 years old. Until then, I carried this overwhelming feeling of not-belonging, weirdness, and inability to live in this world. I couldn’t understand why I had difficulties on doing things that were so easy to most people, such as chatting or bonding with others. On the other hand, I also couldn’t understand why I succeed in doing high complexity things that most people found challenging. I was facing an enormous challenge without even knowing why it was so challenging. I had no tools to deal with my condition and I didn’t even know that I had a condition. I didn’t know that there is a biological explanation for all this difficulty, and there are ways to circumvent them. I thought that something was terribly wrong with me, that I wasn’t born to do that, or, in fact, that I wasn’t born to do anything a functionable working adult should do.

Fortunately, things eventually worked out: I found passion in Tax Law, I managed to enter this world, and I connected with people., Suddenly, more than 10 years have passed since then, and it is amazing to note that all the risks, all the difficulties, all the uncertainty were overcome. I actually doubted that I would make it this far, and, even now, I sometimes doubt whether I will make it any further.

But then I am reminded of the Japanese practice of “Kintsugi”, which involves repairing broken objects, especially pottery, with gold amendments. With this, Japanese culture teaches us that flaws, scars, imperfections, accidents are not something to hide, or even worse, something that renders the object worthless. Instead, after being broken, the object becomes even more precious because someone managed to extract the best from the breakdown: adversities are treated with respect and tenderness, and the flaw becomes gold, making something beautiful and precious.

Regarding my greatest achievement so far, it is actually being included in this list. Looking back five years ago, it was unimaginable to even disclose my condition in my work environment. Having the opportunity to disclose it and, above all, to become a world reference in the cause, it is extremely far beyond anything that I could ever imagine.

One day, things will stop to hurt this much.

I believe that my most precious asset for my career is resiliency – I am persistent to the point of stubbornness. In my opinion, if I weren’t in the autism spectrum, I would never have this level of resiliency.

Living with a socially non-privileged condition, such as disability, ethnical/sexual/social minority, or having mental health issues, means carrying a heavier burden. We must walk a thousand miles more to get to the same places as other. What comes naturally to others must be conquered with much more effort by us.

Those in the autism spectrum are the most patient learners in the world: we spend our whole lives observing and learning from others, mimicking, adapting to change, systemizing information, and trying to navigate a society grounded in verbal communication. We never get used to a world that is full of noise, color, and smell, and we face many other challenges.

Therefore, I have always known that things don’t come easy, and nothing is guaranteed in life. I am accustomed to deal with difficulties, failures, rejection, mistakes, and long terms learning, because I know that the key to overcoming them is simply not giving up.

Much of the suffering in the workplace arises from the fact everyone, at some point, will face an unexpected adverse condition, frustration, or feel rejection. The point is: career – like everything else in life – is a path that is not only composed of victories, happy days, achievements, success, and recognition. Actually, it is a path formed by most days being filled with work, dedication, and discipline in order to experience a minority of glorious days. However, the journey is not about winning; actually, it is about not giving up and knowing that falling is inevitable. What matters most is how we rise after every fall, not the fall itself.

This is a project for the future that I am wager to undertake. I have a strong desire to connect with individuals and organizations who are committed to the cause of neurodiversity. I have observed that many other countries are more advanced in discussing and implementing policies related to neurodiversity within the workplace. However, in Brazil, this topic is still surrounded by misinformation, taboo, and stigma. Thus, I believe that we can benefit greatly by studying and learning from the experience of other countries that are some steps ahead of us.

I am thrilled about the opportunity to join the Enable list as I believe that it will facilitate this connection with others who share my passion for promoting neurodiversity in the workplace.

Unfortunately, Brazil suffers from severe misinformation regarding neurodiversity and autism. Most people are not even familiar with the term “neurodiversity”. It is apparent that this misinformation starts from a young age – it is still uncommon to find schools with qualified professionals who are capable of identifying and addressing autism and other forms of neurodiversity.

This is evident in the way that Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is viewed by the majority of schools as undisciplined, irresponsible, and inattentive behavior, instead of recognizing and praising their strengths, such as creativity.

When it comes to the work environment, the situation is not different. Therefore, our main mission in Brazil is to first educate people about neurodiversity. But there is hope, as looking back ten years ago, people were not properly educated regarding including minorities. They were not adequately aware about the challenges faced by non-white people, LGBTQIA+ people, women, or even the impact that mental health has on everyone’s lives. So, I have genuine hope that out fight is just beginning and that ten years from now, this debate will be normalized, and misinformation will fade away.

1. Pay close attention to our strengths, instead of our difficulties: Neurodivergent people are often more skilled in many valuable aspects than neurotypical people, such as focus, depth, loyalty, resilience, creativity, thinking “outside the box”, paying attention to details and patterns, memorizing things, and so much more.

2. Respect our differences and peculiarities: We do not need “fixing”, nor we are “broken” or “inadequate”. We don’t mean to be rude when we are just being objective, and we would greatly appreciate clear, transparent, and direct communication. Our idiosyncrasies are not a reason for jokes. Keeping this in mind, the work environment will become a much more sustainable place not only for us, but for everyone.