Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Steven Waddell: Rocks, Rails, and Revelations: A Model's Autism Story
Wed, 09 Apr 2025
Send us a textStephen 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.comhttps://Facebook.com/tonymantorhttps://instagram.com/tonymantorhttps://twitter.com/tonymantorhttps://youtube.com/tonymantormusicintro/outro music bed written by T. WildWhy Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Chapter 1: Who is Stephen Waddell and what is his story?
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.
Chapter 2: How did Stephen discover his autism?
What sparked that was really my brother and my brother's wife. And so she's involved with... 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 odd duck, different, very introverted person. 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 it 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, okay. 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 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 can talk about at some point if it's interesting. I'm open about it. Lost a bunch of weight, 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 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.
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Chapter 3: What was Stephen's turning point in life?
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've 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 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 bridal, 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.
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Chapter 4: How did Stephen transition into the modeling industry?
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 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 force. And that really happened after I had a life-changing accident. When I was 21, me and a couple of friends were out drinking. And I'll cut the 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 falling on the third rail of the New York subway after just nights out of 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, I can show you on zoom so you can see the scar on this arm.
And so that's where I hit the rail and the electricity came out a few spots up 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?
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Chapter 5: What strategies did Stephen use to manage social situations?
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 a 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 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 they're 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 foot 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 a half and 6'2, maybe 6'3. 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 that add 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 am living now in this day and age.
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Chapter 6: How does sensory overload affect Stephen?
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 cause it's an even weight in my hand. And then sometimes I want this because 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 my head stops spinning. It triggers the chronic 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 nonprofits.
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 of 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
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Chapter 7: What are Stephen's coping mechanisms for meltdowns?
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 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 for this day and I can't get them 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 wonderful and my brother dan My dad, maybe a little bit sometimes, I call 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 to six times a year over the phone. And he's in Rhode Island. But I would say, yeah, the 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?
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Chapter 8: How does Stephen handle food sensitivities?
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 of the bell curve type of relationship that it would have been noticed sooner, but it was such a relief from somebody who doesn't really care about social status, isn't too concerned with what people think about them, almost oblivious to it. And so I think she liked that, so it fell under the radar. And her father is highly introverted, so I think That played into it as well.
And we were in that time in our lives when we were building our career. I think she knew what 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 it by her. And I forget if I ran it by her exactly or if she mentioned it to me. But the general reaction was like, yeah, it sounds about right. Okay.
Yeah, that's great. Great attitude to have. Yeah. 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. 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 I was like, Yeah, it just fits. And now it's gotten to the point where I'm comfortable telling my gal, it's like, all right, I have to de-stim, which is pretty much me pacing in a circle, tossing this rock in my hand repeatedly for anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours.
I don't know why I need to. I just know it's what happens and just how I am.
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