Introducing the Neurodiversity Guide: a workplace guide from the lived experience perspective

In this candid and thoughtful interview, Meine Ramakers, research technician at the Switch Lab (VIB-KU Leuven Center for Neuroscience) reflects on her late autism diagnosis and the journey that led her to create the Neurodiversity Guide: a workplace guide from the lived experience perspective. Drawing from her lived experience and the collective insights of her neurodivergent community, she shares how misunderstanding, masking, and years of unseen struggles shaped both her personal story and her motivation to build a resource that centers real neurodivergent voices. Her reflections offer a compelling look into the importance of representation, self-understanding, and workplace inclusion — and why this guide is as much for allies as it is for neurodivergent individuals themselves.

Hi Meine! You recently created a resource called ‘Neurodiversity Guide: a workplace guide from the lived experience perspective’. Can you tell us some more about it?

Sure! I made a resource that explains what neurodiversity is, and how we can make workplaces more inclusive for neurodivergent individuals. Neurodivergent experiences and support needs vary widely. This guide focuses on neurodivergent adults, particularly those with lower support needs who may be more skilled at masking. Their challenges are often less visible, yet still significant. This guide highlights what it’s like to navigate professional environments while neurodivergent and offers practical strategies for inclusion and support.

This guide isn’t just for neurodivergent people — it’s for everyone, whether you're neurodivergent yourself, a colleague or a manager, or someone simply wanting to learn more. While it is written from a neurodivergent perspective and centers neurodivergent experiences, its goal is to build understanding and empathy across the workplace.

What can people expect to learn from this resource?

In this guide, I intentionally moved away from the medical model of neurodiversity, which tends to pathologize neurodivergence by framing it as a set of deficits to be diagnosed and treated. Instead, it is grounded in the neurodiversity paradigm, a social-psychological and socio-political framework that recognizes neurological differences as natural and valuable forms of human diversity. From this perspective, neurodivergence is not something to be 'fixed', but something to be understood and respected. It emphasizes accepting and accommodating people as they are and shifts the focus from changing individuals to changing environments and systems. The goal is to create inclusive, accessible and equitable workplaces and societies, where neurodivergent people can thrive without needing to mask or conform to neurotypical expectations.

I’ve structured the resource into four chapters:

It begins by introducing the neurodiversity paradigm and the key concepts that shape how we understand and experience neurodivergence.

The second chapter centers the lived experiences of neurodivergent individuals. It challenges the assumption that neurotypical perspectives are universal and explores how neurodivergent people perceive and navigate the world differently. Through core concepts — such as sensory sensitivity, differences in executive functioning and communication, stimming, masking and intersectionality — as well as personal narratives, it highlights the richness and complexity of neurodivergent realities and the importance of recognizing and validating them.

The third chapter examines how language shapes perceptions of neurodivergence, by either reinforcing stereotypes or promoting inclusion, and how we can reshape it to be more respectful and accurate.

Finally, the guide brings these insights into the workplace, offering practical strategies to foster truly inclusive environments where neurodivergent people can thrive.

What motivated you to create this resource?

My motivation for writing this guide comes from my lived experience of neurodiversity. I received an autism diagnosis at age 36. It took me a long time to recognize I’m autistic (editor's note: many autistic people prefer first-person language, as opposed to ‘a person with autism’), because the image of autism in society is so stereotypical, and I didn’t recognize myself in it. Most of what I knew came from a very narrow view of autism, ideas like that it occurs mostly in young boys, that autistic people lack empathy, that they are either geniuses or completely nonverbal, and that a diagnosis is something to be pitied. None of that really reflected the reality I would later discover.

Too often, the focus is on how neurodivergence looks from the outside, rather than what it actually feels like. Those portrayals didn’t reflect me. They left out the sensory overload, the social exhaustion, the difficulty of reading people or situations and figuring out what’s expected. They didn’t capture the loneliness of never quite fitting in. I also didn’t know that ‘masking’ existed — that so many of us, consciously or unconsciously, learn to hide parts of ourselves just to blend in socially. I had no idea I was doing it. Looking back, it makes sense that it took me so long to realize I’m autistic.

Soon after my diagnosis, I enrolled in a course to learn more about autism, hoping it might help me better understand myself. The course was designed for both autistic people and parents of autistic children. However, I eventually stepped away, because the way parents spoke about their frustrations with their children felt traumatizing and echoed the negative experiences many autistic adults carry. I often felt like a case study — an example of what an autistic adult looked like — rather than a participant. The resources shared were also framed from the perspective of neurotypical parents, rather than from neurodivergent voices themselves. I realized this wasn’t the right space for me, as it didn’t reflect or resonate with my lived experience of neurodiversity. From that point forward, I chose to seek out content created by the community, for the community.

How did your life change post-diagnosis?

Receiving my diagnosis was both a relief and a reckoning. Suddenly, things made sense — but I also felt anger for all the years I had struggled without the tools or language to understand myself. This guide is the resource I wish I’d had back then: one that reflects real, lived neurodivergent experiences and centers our perspectives.

Finding my neurodivergent community was transformative. Being among people who shared similar experiences was like holding up a mirror; I began to see myself more clearly, let go of shame, and feel a sense of belonging I had never known before. I wish that for every neurodivergent person. I don’t want others to spend years searching for answers the way I did. While this resource is meant for everyone, it’s written with my neurodivergent peers in mind, to offer a resource where they can recognize themselves and feel seen.

You’ve been a research technician at Switch Lab, part of VIB-KU Leuven Center for Neuroscience, for fourteen years. You received your autism diagnosis two years ago. How did discovering your neurodivergence change your experience at work?

Before I received my autism diagnosis, I struggled for years with being constantly stressed and overwhelmed — so much so that I always had sore muscles from all the tension I was holding in my body! I was constantly wondering: “Why is it that things that seem so easy for other people, are so difficult for me? Why am I always struggling?”

For instance, as a senior technician in the lab, people often dropped by my office to ask me questions, but I found being constantly interrupted and having to switch tasks extremely disorienting. It was common that when new colleagues arrived, a technical staff member would introduce them to the lab, tell them the chemical safety rules, explain how cell culture works, and stuff like that. But for some reason, I found that social interaction extremely exhausting.

After my diagnosis, all those pieces fell into place. On the one hand, it felt like a massive relief, because I finally had an answer to all the things I’d been wondering about all these years. On the other, it made me very sad, because I had experienced a lifetime of struggle that could have been prevented if only I’d known sooner.

I didn’t take long to share the news of my autism diagnosis with my lab PI’s Joost and Fré (Joost Schymkowitz and Frederic Rousseau) and lab manager Hannah (Wilkinson), because we’ve been working together for so many years and I knew that they’d receive it well. Their response was, in essence: “This doesn’t change how we think about you,” as well as “What can we do to support you?” — the best response I could have hoped for. Through conversations with neurodivergent peers, I’ve realized this isn’t something everyone can count on.

After that, I decided that I no longer wanted to hide who I really am. I wrote an email to the entire lab to share, which Hannah helped me to edit and send out. My message was simple: I’m autistic, and I’m not sad about it. For me, getting this diagnosis was a relief because it helped me understand myself better. I also wanted people to know they could ask me about it - I’m happy to talk if they’re curious.

Despite this, many people still didn’t dare to bring it up, as if it was a shameful thing to talk about. I think a lot of neurotypical people mean well but just don’t have the vocabulary to talk about it, or are afraid of saying the wrong thing. The response from neurodivergent people was often a lot more positive. I remember when I told you, for example, you were like, “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!”

[Laughs] Yes! Because I can relate to the experience of waiting for a long time to receive a diagnosis, and how it can open up doors to getting the kind of support you might need. It’s something to celebrate! What kinds of accommodations have been available for you at work?

In the past, I cared a lot about what people thought of me and would constantly adjust to their communication style or way of working. Now, I try to design my world in ways that are more compatible with how I process and interact with others.

At the beginning, I often felt the need to explain why I did or didn’t do certain things. For example, I’d say, ‘I’ll join for a drink after work, but I won’t stay long, because socializing consumes a lot of my energy.’ I wanted people to understand that it wasn’t about not wanting to connect, but rather that I struggled with that particular form of socializing. When I explained it, people would respond positively, saying things like, ‘It’s really nice that you come at all, even if it’s only for 15 minutes!’ Over time, though, I’ve found I don’t need to explain myself as much. Now I might simply say, ‘Can we talk about this later? I’m feeling overstimulated,’ and people respect that without further questions.

My take-home message is that accommodations are deeply personal: what helps one person may not help another. For instance, I used to work in an open-plan office, but the constant noise and chatter left me drained. After my diagnosis, I moved into a smaller office, which had a huge impact on both my productivity and my mental wellbeing. People also used to knock on my door with endless small questions, but now they’ve learned to think twice before interrupting. And when we installed acoustic panels in the common kitchen, it turned out to be an easy, inexpensive fix that benefited everyone, not just me. That’s the power of universal design—changes made with one person in mind often improve the environment for many.

What’s really helped in these situations is the support of allies. Our lab manager has consistently advocated for me and had my back. My PI also reassured me that I don’t need to force myself to socialize with everyone, but instead to focus on building genuine connections with the people I get along with. That took away the pressure of forced small talk at the coffee machine or feeling like I had to join every lunch.

I try to let go of habits that drain me unnecessarily. For example, I used to force myself to maintain eye contact with everyone I spoke to at work. Now, I don’t pay as much attention to that, and it feels liberating. I feel I’m an extrovert at heart, but my struggles with energy and social interaction create a barrier - one that’s often invisible to those around me.

Can you tell us about the process of creating this guide, and what role allies and the neurodivergent community played in it?

The guide grew out of many conversations with colleagues and fellow neurodivergent people at VIB. After drafting the initial version, I shared it with ten neurodivergent colleagues and friends who took the time to read it, reflect on it, and share their insights. Their honesty and lived experience made the guide stronger, clearer, and more grounded. I am deeply grateful for their support. Thanks to them, this guide became what I had hoped it would be: a resource created by the community, for the community.

Thank you for giving me the space to share my story and the journey behind this guide. My hope is that it helps others feel seen, understood, and supported - and that it sparks more conversations about neurodiversity in the workplace.

Thank you, Meine!

Bethan Burnside

Neuroscience Communicator, VIB-KU Leuven Center for Neuroscience

• bethan.burnside@kuleuven.be
• +32 471 743 397