Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Steven Waddell: Rocks, Rails, and Revelations: A Model's Autism Story

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Send us a text Stephen Waddell takes us on a powerful journey of self-discovery as he shares how he uncovered his autism in adulthood after building a successful modeling career. Despite being naturally introverted and struggling with social interactions, Stephen found himself thrust into a profession that demanded social fluency – forcing him to systematically develop scripts and strategies that masked his autistic traits. A near-fatal accident on the New York subway at age 21 became Stephen's turning point. After surviving contact with the third rail, he emerged with a renewed determination to engage with life, methodically teaching himself social skills and transforming physically – losing nearly 200 pounds before unexpectedly entering the modeling world. This brutal forcing of social interaction became both his challenge and eventual strength. What makes Stephen's perspective particularly valuable is his insight into the exhausting nature of social masking. "It's been 15 years of doing the same kind of thing over and over again," he explains, describing how his carefully constructed public persona differs dramatically from his private self. He demonstrates how simple tools like his collection of stimming rocks provide essential sensory regulation when overwhelm hits. Now focused on nonprofit accounting, Stephen offers a fascinating perspective on how artificial intelligence can level the playing field for neurodivergent individuals. By automating social communications that would typically require significant emotional energy, AI helps him bypass the need for masking in many situations. His vision for technology as an equalizer offers hope for creating more accessible professional environments. For young autistic people struggling with that "social confusion fog," Stephen's message is clear: "Take your time, it does get better." His journey from confusion to clarity demonstrates how understanding your neurodivergent mind can transform perceived limitations into unique strengths and open unexpected paths forward. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 and 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 obduck, different, very introverted, very comfortable being alone. Then later on in life, my brother's wife, oh, 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 I was 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 genres, 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 at the point now where it's almost like I might have to learn how to unmask because it's been 15 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 common assumption people have. But the person I actually am, very quiet, very introverted,

lots of niche tastes, very peculiar at times, picky with some 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 can see here, it's one of my stimming objects right here, which is 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 15, 20 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 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 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 wool 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, 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. 100% forced, brutal forced. And that really happened after I had a life-changing accident. When I was 21, 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, ended up tripping and falling on the third rail to New York subway after just nights out and drinking. And I think that really played a role in the socialization. And just if it's a social event, I just need 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 it was like,

okay. This arm is, I can show you on Zoom. So you can see the scar and the scar and the, armably. 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 was 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 VEX majority of people were relatively kind.

That's great to hear. say 10% 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 was about 320 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 weight. and I ended up like one of those moments where 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 5.11 and 1⁄2 and 6 to maybe 6.3. Otherwise you don't fit the sample sizes of the clothing and it's a business just like a. anything else. It's a little bit different now because your influence matters with social media and stuff that had that 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 earn 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 rambler, 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 we're very sensitive to truthfulness.

So typically that personality type, it's called NPD, 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 success 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 during 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 intending to merely 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 will give me a different censor 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 my head stops spinning. It triggers the crunk pain as well. I require solitude and stillness is what kind of works for sometimes four to 12 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, not really. I can't say it. There's a couple of foods that produce disgust. 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 non-profits? Yeah, primarily what I do, I got connected with a 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. if we're going to bring it into autism and how it relates for autism is the whole social masking and scripting 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 and I can't get it by this date, 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 circle 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 who I've been with for 14 years now. Yeah, so my gal, we've been together 14,

could be 15 in August. I can't believe how time flies. But it's amazing. She's just wonderful. And my brother, Dan, my dad, maybe a little bit sometimes, calling him. But really, that's the 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 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 were 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 of the bell curve 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 was highly introverted. So I think that played into it as well. And we were in that time in our lives, we're building our career. I think she was 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, it sounded 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 that I'm fine with that. 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 I was like, yeah, it just fits. And now it's gotten into the point where I'm comfortable telling my gal, it's like, all right, I have to de-stem, which is pretty much me pacing in a circle, tossing this rock in my hand repeatedly for anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours. hours. I don't know why I need to. I just know 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, high focus, work. And I know Chase Bank has a program where they're employing autistic folks and to do this kind of work. 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 that's happened in there too. Yeah, for myself, I really want to continue 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 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 a 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 remove a lot of gatekeeper professions, and it's going to allow more access to opportunity. But in the same, 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 short is 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 20 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 20s, 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 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. Couldn't imagine me, and not 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 was always contractor-based work. Twofold, I'd say I'd encourage young people to consider a contractor or business owner types of ways to support a living, and then I'd encourage the employment sector to

provide more accommodations and understand the value that they can extract neurodiverse value. Yeah. Now, you brought something up that I definitely want to ask. Of course, everything is 20-20 when you're looking back. 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 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 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. So I put that out there too, because I think that some of the reading that I've done, some of the listening that I've done with other folks who are autistic or self-identify as such, 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. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymentor.com. contact, then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show.

One more thing we ask, tell everyone everywhere about why not me, the world, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone, everywhere, that you are not alone in this world.