Steven Waddell: Rocks, Rails, and Revelations: A Model's Autism Story

Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Podcast hosted by Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee.
Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some
will make your laugh.
Some will make you cry.
Real life people who will inspire and show that you
are not alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Joining us today is Stephen Waddell. He's a model and
a blogger specializing in writing about his health and wellness.
He joins us today to discuss his experiences with autism
and how it has impacted his life's journey, as well
as his strategies for managing it and his career choices.
He has a unique approach and will undoubtedly share valuable
insights with us. Thanks for coming.
On, Yeah, no, for sure, man, So if you.
Would give us a little information about yourself.
What sparked that was really my brother and my brother's
wife and so she's involved with she's getting she's involved
in getting a PhD. And I hope I don't butcher
it what exactly it is? But it's one of those
things where it's very long and very niche, but essentially
it's in that world where she studies this kind of stuff.
Growing up, I always knew I was maybe a bit
of an obduct different, very introverted, very comfortable being alone.
Then later on in life, my brother's wife, Hope, she
started studying this and started talking to my brother about
and said, your behaviors match up with this. And then
one thing led to another, and I started calling my
brother on long drives and we started talking about this
stuff and I was like, you know, I do that,
and yeah, I do that. That's called stimming, and it's like, oh,
there's a word for it. I was like, that's interesting.
I just thought I was weird. There's that. And then
we started talking about social masking, and that's where it
really settled in for me in a big way, because
that's always been a big hurdle of mine, is the
whole social component. I'm a little bit fuzzy now and
I put on some weight in the accounting season, but
my background ended up being in the modeling industry, and
I ended up building my career doing stuff in the
front end of the modeling industry. A little bit after I
basically lost a bunch of weight after a bad accident,
which we could talk about at some point if it's interesting.
I'm open about it, lost a bunch of way, ended
up working in the modeling industry, and then ended up
working in the back end of the modeling industry, entertaining right,
where being social is very important, and also in the
modeling world, understanding social etiquette becomes pretty important too in
terms of kind of income drivers.
Right, So how did you approach that?
Because social is sometimes very tough for an autistic person.
So it was a very interesting world to be in,
and I was almost forced to have to learn, step
by the step, do this, do not? Do this? Build
those scripts as a way to fit in. It's about
the point now where it's almost like I might have
to learn how to en mask, because it's been fifteen
years of doing the same kind of thing like over
and over again, and it's really like the people who
know me well and see me a lot privately understand
that what gets presented out to the world ends up
quite frequently looking like somebody who might have been like
the captain of the baseball team or something like that,
which is a very omino assumption people have. But the
person I actually am very quiet, very introverted, lots of
niche tastes, very peculiar at times, pickywits on things, not
with others, odd sense of humor, all that kind of stuff.
And I think if we're talking about it in terms
of the spectrum, and you could see here at one
of my stemming objects right here just rocks. In terms
of the spectrum, I'm probably less openly showing about it
in my college years or high school. People might have
thought it then. But fifteen twenty years of masking in
a very social industry where you have to appear like
you're that part of the party, you tend to learn
certain things that people are looking for.
Yeah, that's pretty understanding there. What type of modeling did
you do. Did it require a lot of changes in clothes?
All modeling does. I didn't do it, do a ton
of it, but mainly stuff in suits. You can call
it bridle that kind of thing.
Did you have any issues with texture of clothes? I
know some autistic people will have issues with texture of clothes.
I don't, per se. I happen to really like wool,
and this sweater is not a wool one, but that
I have a wool sweater i'd like wearing. That's a
little bit more. And this goes back to the masking.
And I can actually show you this is one of
the wolf sweaters that I like wearing, but it looks
like a Christmas sweater. And so when you're appearing on
business meetings and zooms, and I just was on one,
and you can only get away with that for a
few weeks out.
Of the year with all of this happening, How did
you come out of your shell?
You're introverted. You was doing a lot of masking.
Did you have to force yourself to get that unmasking
so to speak?
How did you handle that? How did you approach it?
Forced it force, brural force. And that really happened after
I had a life changing accident when I was twenty one.
Me and a couple friends were out drinking. And I'll
cut this story kind of short on this part because
it relates, but it's not why we're here. But essentially
I ended up tripping and following on their railed in
New York subway after just nights out drinking. And I
think that really played a role in the socialization and
just if it's a social event. I just needed copious
amounts of alcohol to feel normal. Just would use that.
And then after that accident happened, I have an epiphany.
I was just really happy to be alive, and I
was like, okay, this arm is any show you on
zoom so you can see the scar disarmably. And so
that's where I hit the rail and the electricity came out,
a few spots out my.
Spine, so I have lots of scar tissue on the inside,
a couple spots out on my legs, and just did
something to me where I was like, I need to
figure out how to participate in life.
I need to figure out how to do this.
What did you do to change so that you could
move forward in a different direction.
So I would just force myself to learn how to
have a conversation with people, which were just the beginning
stages were rough because I would just go out to
bars and I'd ask people the same question over and
over again. What did you think of the game last night?
Did you see the game last night? What did you
like about the game last night? But it was just
to force it, and I would say the interesting thing
about that is the vast majority of people were relatively kind.
That's great to hear.
I would say ten percent of the people just got
a bad attitude about it and that was rough to
deal with. So that kind of sparked something in me.
And then I was pretty overweight at the time too.
It's about three hundred and twenty pounds, and basically through
this process of about a year and a half, I
stumbled into an accidental Atkins diet because the doctors told
me I needed to eat a lot of protein to
regrow muscle mass, and I lost a lot of weak
and I ended up like one of those moments where
they were like, you can actually model, and I ended
up doing a little bit of that. But I've got
this big scar on my arm and I'm almost six
with five which in the modeling world is not a
profitable thing as a male.
Yeah that does seem tall for a model.
Yeah, you're too tall. So you want to be between
five eleven and a half and six to maybe six
three otherwise you don't get the sample sizes of the clothing.
And it's a business just like anything else. It's a
little bit different now because your influence matters with social
media and stuff. And not component to it, but nonetheless
it's still an industry. And then being in that industry,
you were forced very much to understand what's happening socially.
For me, it's almost like I was able to turn
a negative into a positive because I was forced to
break everything down and forced to really understand things.
Did that help you move forward with that industry?
What eventually gave me staying power in the industry were
really two things. I was able to understand the analytical
side of the business, which very few people who understand
the modeling world and the creative aspects do, and that
translates well into the nonprofit sector as well, which is
primarily where I earm my living now in this day
and age. The second part to it is you end
up dealing with a lot of hard to deal with people.
Here's where we could touch on a little bit of
mental illness as well. So I became a little bit
of the narcissist wrangler mainly because and I've noticed this
and as I've gone through the late diagnosis and everything
that us autistic folks and I think were very sensitive
to truthfulness. So typically that personality type it's called MPD.
I think they play around with the truth in ways
that I think folks who are normal neurotypical don't pick
up on it right away until it's too late. But
it almost became a sense for me in this industry
of being able to identify this and also not just
that deal with these folks to a profitable result for
all entities included. I can't get into too many specifics
with it because if NDA is in this kind of thing,
but we work with large companies, publicly traded ones, and just.
It's what about sensory overload?
Did you have any instances where that happened to you
doing all the things that you was doing in your
daily life every day.
I still go through it, and that's one of the
dangers of I think my job and one of the
reasons why I'm continuing to move into the nonprofit sector
and start doing that consciously away from the modeling sector.
Because you can say I've got one of my stem
rocks in my hand, I would say a lot of
pacing in circles and some sort of object like this,
and then I have another one here, similar rock. But
I found I like the different sensation in my hand,
like sometimes I want this because it's an even weight
in my hand, and then sometimes I want this because
it's it will give me a different sensor each time,
because it doesn't always land the same way. I get
them from a rock store that's five minutes away, where
all they do is sell rocks. I treat myself.
Yeah, that's good, whatever it takes, right. What about meltdowns?
Do you have any issues there? Some autistic people have meltdowns,
some don't.
How are you.
I'm still learning a bit more exactly what a meltdown is.
But my understanding of what happens with me is I
have a heat pad on the floor, and so I'll
just lie on the heat pad until I know my
head stops spinning. It triggers the crunk of pain as well.
I require solitude and stillness is what kind of works
for sometimes four to twelve hours.
Sure. Now, what about food?
I know a lot of people have issues with certain
food textures. They don't like it, they can't eat it.
They have to find something that's different that they can like.
How does that affect you?
I don't know. I'm not really I can't say it that.
There's a couple of foods that produce disgusted I think
it's in the normal range. It's nothing like too outstanding.
That's really good. Now you said that you're trying to
move on from the modeling and get more into the
world of charity and nonprofits.
Yeah, primarily what I do. I got connected with the
firm specialized in nonprofit accounting. I've been working there with
them for over a decade, have some private clients in
my own in the nonprofit world, and started really utilizing
AI quite a bit to really reduce my workload down.
I started really noticing how AI can really help nonprofits
bridge a lot of gaps and help with the grant
management and grant writing and essentially that portion of every
nonprofit that they have to go to. So that's really
I would say that's become my area of specialty and
interest many reasons, and I think the simplest one is
I see it very much as leveling the playing field
and if we're going to bring it into autism and
how it relates for autism is the whole social masking
and stripting process is very labor intensive and requires immense
amount of emotional energy. For me, When I can program
an AI to write me an email in a way
that it gets better over time. I don't have to
think about how I need to respond. I don't have
to think about what's socially normal. I don't have to
think about the emotions that go into it and what's
expected of me. The AI does that for me. It
removes what I find to be a huge emotional burden.
And just writing a one paragraph response to somebody who
I want to connect with, like, my brain will go
crazy and think of all of these details, all the
stuff that's irrelevant. But when I'm just able to get
on my phone and say, hey, Jimmy emailed me and
they want financial reports with this day, that can't get
them by this day, can you write a response? And
just having AI do that and looking at that response,
I'm like, Okay, serviceable, good off for everybody and for
all humans. I think that's a very beneficial thing.
Sure, that makes total sense. Now, what about friends? Since
you've been trying to expand a little bit, have you
come out of your shell or do you still have
a small so of friends and keep it very close
to what you feel comfortable with.
Very small circle even though people think otherwise. It's really
I would say, my girlfriend, I've been with for fourteen
years now. Yeah, so my gal, we've been together fourteen
it could be fifteen in August. I can't believe how
time flies. But it's amazing. She's wonderful. And my brother Dan,
my dad maybe a little bit sometimes call on. But
really that's a social circle. And I have some friends too.
I was just talking to my friend Andy today, but
he's somebody I probably speak with. I'm talking to him
more now, but maybe three or threes or six times
a year over the phone. And he's in Rhode Island.
But I would say, yeah, friendship circle is pretty small.
Yeah, I get that completely understand Now, what about your girlfriend?
Did she know before you got together that you might
have been autistic or was it after you got together
that the autism came about?
Can you expand on that a little bit.
She knew I was very introverted and different, and we're
both involved in the modeling industry, and so I think
she liked it initially, and it was like something that
I think it may be it was more of a
middle developer type of relationship that it would have been
noticed sooner, but it was such like a relief from
somebody who doesn't really care about social status. Isn't too
concerned with what people think about them, almost like oblivious
to it, and so I think she liked that. So
it fell under the radar. And her father's highly introverted,
so I think that played into it as well. And
we were in that time in our lives, building our career.
I think she knew what it's different. We didn't really
have words for her, and I think around the time
my brother and I were talking about this stuff and
I ran a buyer, and I forget if I ran
it by her exactly or if she said or if
she mentioned it to me, but the general reaction was like, yeah,
that sounds.
I got right, Okay, yeah, that's great, great attitude to have.
Now did you ever get truly diagnosed or did you
just believe that you were and just went self diagnosed.
I just assumed, and I'm fine with that. It's I
think the main reason why I won't seek a diagnosis
is because I've heard that there are some instances where
it can be classified as a disability, and eventually it
can hurt you in some capacity in work and other
professional fields. I don't know how I really feel about that. Still,
it's still new. For me, and I wonder what would
I get out of it if I did.
Yeah, I totally understand that completely. How long have you
considered yourself autistic?
Maybe thinking about it for about three years and then
consider myself probably a year and a half where it
was like, yeah, it just fits. And now it's gotten
to the point where I'm comfortable telling my goal. It's
like I have to stem, which is pretty much me
pacing in a circle, tossing this rock in my hand
repeatedly for anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours. I
don't know why I need to. I just know it's
what happens and just how I am.
Yeah, so basically you're creating your own comfort zone.
Yeah, very repetitive. It's what drew me into the accounting
field as well, is it's very repetitive. I focus were
and on. I know Chase Bank has a program where
they're employing autistic folks and to do this kind of war.
Yeah, so what's your goals now?
Where do you see yourself in three, say, five years
from now?
It depends on what happens given the political climate and
everything's happen there too. Yeah, for myself, I really want
to continue to to hone into my work with nonprofits.
I love it. I enjoy it. I've learned a lot
about the nonprofit sector and I view it very much
as an essential way that we can fix the problems
of our world. And I see the business sector providing
value in certain areas, the government and other areas, and
the nonprofit world in another. And I really enjoy and
can see AI as this leveling of the playing field
type of tech in ways in which it can allow
people with a good work ethic, a good idea. And
it doesn't it matters less the background that you came
from and the relationships that you have, because a lot
of times this tech can replace a lawyer. My dad's
a lawyer. I can go call him for legal advice,
like that's an immense privilege. But now I can use
AI to help me read a contract. I can use
AI to help me write a contract. And sure it's
not perfect, but a lot of times if you don't
have the resource and that's all you have, it's a
hell lot better than nothing at all. You can learn
how to do SEO on your website. On it, you
can have it write a grant application for you. Even
if English isn't your first language. You can write the
thing verbally in your native tongue just by speaking into it,
and then you could have a grant application produced in English.
So I think it's going to help we move a
lot of gatekeeper professions, and it's going to allow more
access to opportunity. But in the same token, it's also
going to condense control and power in hands of basically
the people who learn how to use it. It's got that
kind of positive and negative and the shortest spend some
time every day to learn how to use it.
Yeah. Absolutely, change is not always bad.
Now, what would you like to tell our listeners that
you think is important for them to hear about what
you're doing.
I think, really i'd like to reach somebody in my
shoes twenty years ago, just say take your time. It
does get better. In the same token, I'm glad we
live in a world where we can now talk about
this openly, because I'm not sure I would have followed
the same path if I really, if podcasts were out
and this information was out when I was in my
young twenties, I wouldn't have gone through this immense amount
of pain like this, just this fog of just not
understanding how this social component works. And I would say,
if I can hit one thing that would resonate with people,
it's at that young age. It's that social confusion fog.
And that was big for me because I think I
was I'm somewhere in the spectrum where it's like I
know enough when something's not going not right socially right,
but I don't know what it is, and be yourself,
be open and learn what works for you. And I'd
probably encourage everybody to work as a contractor or a
business owner as a young age with this too, I
couldn't imagine being an employee. I couldn't imagine being And
that's some too, like a big part of my journey
that perhaps is that I missed is I very rarely
was an employee for any of these periods. It's always
contractor based work. Twofold. I'd say I've encouraged young people
to consider a contractor or business owner types of ways
for a living, and then I'd encourage the employment sector
to provide more accommodations and understand the value that they
can extract from neural diversebobyeah.
Yeah, Now you brought something up that I definitely want
to ask. Of course everything is twenty twenty. When you're
looking back, it's perfect, you see it.
Yeah.
Yeah, When you look back, you can always say, oh,
I should have done this or I should have done that.
Is there anything that you look back on now that
you would change, You would say I should have done
this instead of this, or I should have done that?
Or are you happy with the journey that you've taken
to get where you are now.
I think it's one of those things where it's more
I wish I would have done this soon, And that's
what goes on in my brain where I'm like, I
wish I would have reached out in my hand sooner
to introduce myself to people. I wish I would have
learned how to open myself up to connection sooner. That's
a big part of my journey. And I think too,
I wish I would have noticed the alcohol use in
particular sooner and how I was using that to cope
with all of these feelings that constantly came up. I
even attended some alcoholics anonymous, meaning later on in life.
And this was basically, well, maybe a year or two
before thinking about autism, and I noticed a lot of
similarities there, But in the end, the truth is I
started noticing some really key differences too that were really big,
like the being able to stop component, Like I was
always able to stop even though it caused wreckage. I
was like, Okay, that's it, I'm done. It was fine.
And that's where the journey shifted. Quite a bit of
that out there too, because I think that some of
the reading that I've done, some of the listening I've
done with other folks who are autistic or self identify
as such, or also talk about alcohol and how it
shows up.
Yeah, that's a great message. This has been a great conversation,
great information. I really appreciate you taking the time to
come on.
Yeah, thanks, Tony, appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
It's been my pleasure. Thanks again.
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