Chris Weakly: Uncovering Self-Truths - An Autistic Adult's Story of Self-Discovery and Empowerment

Imagine discovering a core truth about yourself that reshapes the narrative of your life. That's exactly what happened to Chris Weakly, who uncovered his autism diagnosis well into adulthood. 
Join me, Tony Mantor, on a profound journey with Chris as he opens up about the seismic shifts in self-awareness, personal relationships, and career paths that followed his revelation.
 His raw account navigates the complexities of adult autism support, and highlights the sanctuary he found within the IT world, where structure and logic reign supreme. 

Teetering on the edge of familial connection and isolation, Chris's tale is one of courage amidst the intricacies of sibling ties and professional life. 
We traverse the landscape of his childhood, marked by bullying and a lack of understanding, only to be uplifted by tales of empowerment and recognition of his unique gifts. 
His story serves as a beacon, illuminating the need for inclusive workspaces and underscoring the pivotal role of empathy and acknowledgment in the lives of individuals on the autism spectrum.

As we wrap up our heartwarming dialogue, Chris and I reflect on the ripple effects of advocacy and visibility for the autistic community. 
We touch upon the burgeoning support systems for families and the exciting inroads being made towards global inclusion, like the autism-friendly initiatives at Dubai's airport. 
Every story has the power to resonate and catalyze change, and Chris's narrative is no exception. 
Your story, too, is waiting to be heard. 
Share it with us on "Why Not Me," and join a community committed to understanding and celebrating the diversity of the human experience.

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intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

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 you laugh, some will make you cry, some will make you feel like 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. Today's guest was diagnosed autistic a little later in life. Chris Weakly joins us today. Now he's using his autism to help others in the autistic community. Welcome to the show. I really appreciate you coming on.

Speaker 2: 1:08

I am extremely honored for the opportunity to be on your show.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Well, thanks, I really appreciate it. The pleasure is all mine. So at what age was you diagnosed autistic?

Speaker 2: 1:17

So in my 30s it really started off as a conversation that I had been avoiding having with my wife. I've been married 27 years and pretty far along into our marriage she said look, we need to figure out what's going on with you or our marriage is really going to suffer and may not survive this. So we scheduled an appointment with our physician, explained some of what was going on, was referred to a psychologist, and then another psychologist and then a psychiatrist, and there was all kinds of forms and things to fill out, a lot of questions, some of them uncomfortable. I had a pretty tough childhood. You know when you have to go back and kind of relive some of that, it kind of sucks, to be honest. You know, when it was probably a span of a couple of years before really nailing it down, I was diagnosed with a few other things and they were like well, you take this medication and you should improve and you should get better, and I wasn't getting better.

Speaker 2: 2:24

I remember going over with a really good psychiatrist who really specialized in autism, specifically Asperger's. He sat down and he goes. You know, I look through all the paperwork and all the charts and he goes. I've got a handful of questions of my own that I want to ask and they were very direct, very specific about how I played as a kid, how I, if I, storied and created my own little games. Within games and things like that, he said look, you have Asperger's. And I'm like what is that? Well, it's. At the time they described it as a subset of autism.

Speaker 1: 3:01

Okay.

Speaker 2: 3:02

And he said things are not going to make sense to you the way they will Most people probably ever. I mean you'll get close with enough work and dedication to making improvements in your own life.

Speaker 1: 3:16

So, with that information, what was your reaction to it?

Speaker 2: 3:20

For me it was devastating because growing up I'd always heard you know there's something wrong with Chris, he's weird, he doesn't do things like everyone else does. And I took it very hard. I took it very negatively that everyone had been right and I was just in this black hole that I just couldn't seem to get out of. Wow, that's tough to take. Even today, when adults are late diagnosed on the spectrum, there aren't a lot of services or people to call or reach out to to really start the process of being able to manage your life.

Speaker 2: 3:57

And for some of that I really got to thinking over the last several years in that a lot of the starting blocks that as an adult being diagnosed, you're starting from some of the same starting blocks as children. There was one therapist early on that I stopped going to after probably three sessions because I kept hearing well, you should know this by now. Wow, I really started thinking about that phrase and I was like that phrase is just awful, because if you've never been exposed to something, you can't just know it. There has to be some exposure somehow, some way. Right, it worked for that to make sense.

Speaker 1: 4:34

Absolutely. I was told by a nutritionist that children of different ages. When you introduce new things to them, it takes them up to 15 times before they really absorb it and understand. So that has to be common with other things as well.

Speaker 2: 4:51

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1: 4:52

Now I've had the opportunity to speak with several people that have been diagnosed autistic later in life. One lady was diagnosed in her 40s. She told me it took her three or four years to get through it and then she'd realized that she'd lost four decades. But in her 50s she started living life and things were much better. So did you have a similar situation?

Speaker 2: 5:15

For me it was probably longer. I ended up burying myself in my work, okay, and I went into the IT field. I really had two options at the time. I was really dabbling in computers, but at the church that we went to, I found myself up in the balcony doing a lot of things with sound and mixing and all of that stuff. And then it was where the internet was getting widely used enough and websites were starting to happen so churches could record services and then post them and things like that. And this was the best of both worlds for me, because I was up where there were very few people and these things were.

Speaker 2: 6:00

Computers and sound are two things that will probably always fascinate me, and every time there's something that changes or something new happens, those are things that I really am drawn to.

Speaker 2: 6:13

But I went into the IT field because I knew that there were a lot of jobs there where I could just be neatly tucked away, do my work, have very little human interaction, and it would be really a perfect world for me. Well, what I was doing is I was really kind of caging myself intentionally, not getting any better with social skills and a lot of the people skills that I needed and by burying myself in my work. I thought, if I can just persist this way, somehow I can make it through life Sure, you know, being home enough to talk to my wife and spend some time and try to make those positive, good moments so that everything was probably better than what it actually was, so to speak. There were times where I totally crashed and burned, I just would completely, just shut down and really it all had to do with the high level of masking that I did, really to pass myself off just as everybody else and literally leaving my authentic self behind in life.

Speaker 1: 7:22

Right, and there's a lot of masking that goes on. Most people believe it's just females, but that just goes to show that a lot of males do it as well. I had a guest on my podcast that said that you can go into any lab, throw a rock and you'll probably hit someone that is autistic. So that opened my eyes as well, just like some of the things that you were just saying. So when you go back to your childhood, did you have some of the meltdowns that are prevalent in stories that you hear today?

Speaker 2: 7:50

My meltdowns went from really openly melting down, throwing things, hitting my siblings and really just making a mess of things to a point where I began to just really kind of shut down and shut myself off. At school it really wasn't any better. I barely graduated high school and during school it was kind of like I went from the chaos at home to what was chaos at school and I ended up probably around my probably the year I was in seventh grade, starting junior high. I really started to lean on humor as kind of a coping mechanism.

Speaker 1: 8:32

Okay.

Speaker 2: 8:32

Even to this day the humor can be very off-putting, sometimes inappropriate and really ill-timed, but for me on the inside, it allows me to have this release of tension and nervousness. Unfortunately, over the years my wife has kind of had to kind of bear the brunt of some of that from time to time. Okay, so into junior high and high school I'd find myself kind of I'm kicked out of class and in the hallway, or sometimes they put me in an empty classroom. In those moments there was nobody around and to me it was just kind of like I had done this, but the outcome had been the space that I actually needed the whole time in order to try to make it through the day.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Sure, now you mentioned siblings. How many other siblings do you have?

Speaker 2: 9:21

I'm the oldest of seven.

Speaker 1: 9:22

Seven. Okay, so that leads me to two questions. One, are there any other autistic children in your family? And two, how do you get along with your siblings, now that you've kind of figured it all out on what's going on in your life?

Speaker 2: 9:35

As far as I know and I'm pretty estranged from my family I have been for probably the last 14 years or so, which is something that I try to go. Do I miss them? Is there something missing in life and for me on the inside? Just a lot of those things that would happen for most people. It doesn't happen for me. Sometimes I wish it did, but it's one of those things where, if there was a boy there, I have no idea whether it's actually there, but as far as I know, I'm the odd man out when it comes to being on the spectrum. Of course, my mom's been married multiple times, so I have a few actual siblings, some half-siblings and what have you.

Speaker 1: 10:21

Okay, so how long have you been married now?

Speaker 2: 10:24

We have been married 27 years.

Speaker 1: 10:26

Okay, any kids, or just you and your wife?

Speaker 2: 10:29

We thought about having kids and then we decided, yeah, let's go ahead and do that. Medically, it just kind of turned out not to be in the cards. Rather than just seeing specialists and things like that with no actual guarantee, we just decided, you know what, if it ends up happening, it happens. If not, it doesn't. So we've been four-legged parents probably the whole time.

Speaker 1: 10:54

Okay, all right. Now it seems to me that you have a pretty solid marriage, with your wife saying that you need to figure things out so that you can get through this. What are some of the things that she saw that you might not have seen, or, if you did see it, you tried to mask it. That spurred you into saying, okay, I've got to figure this thing out.

Speaker 2: 11:15

What it had to do with, probably, holidays and travel. I'm not the greatest when it comes to trying to have quick travel plans. We can getaways and things like that, because I have a lot of varying morning and evening routines where I utilize things around the house and it's not like I can pack up the whole house. There were things where I would struggle with work and stuff like that and then coming home after masking day in and day out just being miserable and tired and then still needing to meet the expectations of home life, where really I just wanted to go home and just kind of hide as much as I possibly could. That was something that just wasn't possible. There would be meltdowns. I've had my fair share of meltdowns, even shortly after being diagnosed, before we really kind of were able to dig in and see how we would be able to mitigate these things. Enough to get me from point A to point B.

Speaker 2: 12:15

Okay, also, humor there was a time where she was incredibly angry with me and I did apologize later, but at the time her mom couldn't come into town to do the Christmas shopping. I had to go along because she had planned on buying some things and needed some help. The store was packed I believe it was a coal store I ducked around to another aisle. She was rushing to keep up with me and then I just turned around and I said ma'am, why are you following For me? This is the kind of humor that happens for me. Okay, I started to laugh Everyone's looking at her and then I hugged her. I did my best to try to make her kind of feel at ease, but she didn't talk to me the rest of the evening. It was very quiet after that.

Speaker 1: 13:07

Yeah, I can understand that. Now you're formative years high school you said that you had some issues there. Did you get bullied at all?

Speaker 2: 13:15

I was bullying was grade school through high school, because growing up I was just this scrawny little runt of a kid. I mean, I didn't break 100 pounds until I was probably a junior in high school. So I was just this little bitty guy and I was just an easy target. I didn't have any boundaries. I didn't know what boundaries were. I thought, yes would be something that, if I was agreeable, things would work out better. They really didn't. I had beat up a lot, a lot of name calling being pushed around.

Speaker 2: 13:48

The times where I could find some solace was really based on some outlandish humor in the classroom, because I knew the instructors would give me the space that I needed, but I didn't know how to ask for help in that I had no idea how to do that.

Speaker 2: 14:04

Now I did have a couple of teachers in high school who when they would challenge me, they would see a level of brilliance, specifically my drafting instructor. He paired me with a guy who was kind of a class clown too. We ended up building this bridge as an assignment out of glue, cardboard, rubber bands that held almost 200 pounds in between the two desks that it sat on, and it ended up being the bridge that really won out. He pulled me aside and he said look, what you guys put together was ingenious. Some of the scaled versions of the things that I asked you to draw down were absolutely great. I wish that you would apply yourself in this fashion across the board. Again, I had no idea why things worked and looked the way they did to me. I had no idea how to really explain myself.

Speaker 1: 15:02

What years was that? Was that the 80s, 90s?

Speaker 2: 15:06

That was 88 to 92.

Speaker 1: 15:09

So that was at a time when people didn't really know or understand what autism is. You were not only trying to understand yourself, but you was trying to understand others, to get them to understand you. But there wasn't any psychological test out there so that it could be put out there what you're dealing with so that it could help them understand what you're going through.

Speaker 2: 15:33

Exactly and fast forward to where I am now and a lot of the research that I've done. I'm fairly competent that the generation before me and a lot of my generation, possibly a small amount of the generation behind me, remains largely misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed. In the level of research, I found that women in minorities are probably the least tested between the two and the most misdiagnosed. However, when it comes to the numbers of just minority groups you're talking about, they're some of the last people to get tested. They are diagnosed so much later than even a majority of the population.

Speaker 1: 16:19

For the amount of males that will mask their autism. There are probably four times more females that will mask it because they're trying to fit in with all their other friends. Then they're going through the hormonal changes and it makes it that much tougher. That leads to severe depression on teenagers, especially females, because being undiagnosed can really add a strain to their life.

Speaker 2: 16:42

Exactly. I agree that the numbers are incredibly low across the board, not just here. I've looked at numbers across the pond and other parts of Europe. I've had a chance to sit in on some other Zoom calls and a lot of different spaces on what was formerly known as Twitter, speaking to women who are even older than I am that are just newly diagnosed.

Speaker 2: 17:07

There ends up being a lot of medical professionals that some of them would tell the public that it's being overdiagnosed. To me, this would be an awful thing to say, because we don't really say that about anything else, right? When you look at the advancements of being able to detect cancer, I mean, oh well, so many more people are getting different types of cancer from these things. As medical technology begins to really catch up, then you start to see an increase. For me, I think honestly, when people hear that someone has a disability or disorder or a syndrome, it's in the human nature to try to see if they can spot it. I've got to see if I can see it. Therefore, I know it's real. A lot of times, autism just doesn't really work that way.

Speaker 1: 17:54

Right, it's a thought process. I had one lady. She told a friend of hers that she was autistic because she was trying to bear her soul a little bit and get her friend to know her. The first thing the lady said back to us was well, you don't look autistic, she goes. I should have never told her. This has been a great conversation. Just get an update on what you're doing now. I understand that you've got something going. That's actually pretty exciting.

Speaker 2: 18:18

Yeah, fast forward to what I'm doing now. As I began to really research everything about autism, I started looking at unemployment because employment has always been one of those real downers for me. Specifically, even just getting through the interview process, looking on the study, it's anywhere from. Some studies have it at 72% under unemployment. Some have it as high as 83%. When you look at other avenues or other parts of the population with varying disabilities, the unemployment rate isn't nearly that high. I started looking into it. The more I looked into it, the more I thought there is a hidden talent pool that I think companies are really missing out on. I went ahead and began to explore a lot of the unique abilities, talents and skills that autistic people can bring to employment, to work to businesses, and found that, according to scientific statistics, 44% of people on the spectrum have an above average IQ.

Speaker 2: 19:26

With all of the everything from stimming to different types of communication, different responses to different questions and the answer is not being maybe what you're used to A lot of these things tend to keep people who are on the spectrum out of employment.

Speaker 2: 19:45

The environment can be very difficult or challenging to get through day in and day out. I have plenty of experience with that. What I wanted to do is I designed a company called Logical A to go in and teach companies how to properly outreach when they have a position that they need filled in forming people on the spectrum that, yes, go ahead and apply. I want to encourage them to tell employers and for employers to be paired, or knowing that someone who's applying is on the spectrum that real communication questions that need to be asked for answers that they definitely need on both sides, even before an interview happens, in order to establish what the challenges are, how these things can be handled and where everyone is meeting each other halfway and then, once they have an understanding of the changes to the interview, to how they post jobs and things like that, then taking them through their facility and showing them where, and only where, they need to modify down to the department level or a candidate who's on the spectrum.

Speaker 1: 20:55

That makes really good sense.

Speaker 2: 20:57

Say that their sensory issue is smell, then what we're doing is we're not putting them by a break room or a kitchenette, we're putting them further away, with 79% of companies really thinking hiring people with disabilities is very cost prohibitive.

Speaker 2: 21:12

I want to go in there and show them that they don't have to write a big check and be concerned about the bottom line in order to make it possible for people on the spectrum to work there.

Speaker 2: 21:23

A lot of it probably 80% of it or more has to do with changes in communication and how that happens, but what they're getting on the backside of modifying the environment. I use modify instead of accommodate, because when people think of accommodating, they think that they're sacrificing or giving something up, so there's resistance. So if you're using modify, people have an understanding that you're looking to modify something exists in order to make it better. And when autistic people are in a job that fits them, where they're skilled in that and have a high level of interest, but they have an environment that really helps bring that forward, they're 40% or greater in their level of efficiency and productivity compared to that of their counterparts, and so really what this is all about is not doing something for the sake of charity, but you're bringing on people who have a high level of pattern recognition and attention to detail that you don't have right now in a level of productivity that really companies would probably like to have. They just don't know how to find them in the talent pool.

Speaker 1: 22:33

So this company that you formed, is it something that you're working on with people around the country, or is it just localized to where you live now?

Speaker 2: 22:42

So I'm about three months into the actual launch, still working on getting my first customers. I've got an intake form that I'm having a copywriter look at. I have a process manual that I wrote specifically making it kind of the brain that I can pass on at a point in time where I'm busy enough where I need someone to take on additional clients that I can't meet or reach within a proper timeframe. So a lot of it is all me still trying to really get logically out there, let people know that it exists and really what it's for.

Speaker 1: 23:21

Have you tested the market at all with people, letting them know that this is coming, so that you could see if there's an interest there that you can develop and really push towards, so that you can kind of see an end game, so to speak?

Speaker 2: 23:33

That is a lot of why Christie had me on again last night. She's been following the progress. We keep in touch a lot. There's a fantastic organization here in Wichita called Hard Spring. They deal with kids and adults of all types of disabilities and where I'm actually working on scheduling a first workshop with their managers with a big educational component on a lot of the finer details and really helping them understand the things that they'll need to be able to convey and things they'll need to be able to understand and process to hire people on the spectrum.

Speaker 2: 24:13

Now they work with them and to me, their thing was they've got to thinking about how many do we hire and do we really look at them as ideal candidates like we do everyone else? And the big thing that is also an uphill battle is that companies hire like themselves. They hire people like them. So a lot of it's going to have to be getting a change in mindset. So I have a couple of things also planned. I've got a lunch and learn plan with the LA Business School at WSU and so really I'm kind of just coming out of the gates with this and still working on a proper marketing blitz. I'm being encouraged by the Small Business Development Center at Wichita State to do a presser.

Speaker 1: 25:05

That's great. So how do you feel about that?

Speaker 2: 25:08

It's a challenge enough. Going in and presenting the information A presser would mean that many more people would be seeing and being exposed to that. For me, it's important that I take this in steps that I can manage because, just because I'm starting this business and I see the potential and the SBDC sees the potential in it, that doesn't negate the daily challenges that I still have.

Speaker 1: 25:38

Yeah, I get that. I think it's great because there's just so many layers to this that I think is really good. Number one is you're an autistic person. Putting this out, showing that autistic people can be a viable source for employers and you're hopefully breaking down those barriers of understanding, because the biggest challenge that I've seen is the understanding part. I feel that you can accept something because you're aware that it's there, but until you understand it, you don't fully grasp what you're accepting. So I think that we need to get more things out there, just like you're doing, to show employers and just general people in the US and around the world that just because someone has a label of autism attached to them doesn't mean that they can't contribute society and live a good life just like anyone else.

Speaker 2: 26:27

And really that's the thing. There are so many long term components to this is that, then, being able to to work where they can as much as they can, is going to offset a lot of the financial challenges that families have going forward. I've had a chance to meet some great agents from Northwestern Mutual who specialize in long term financial instruments for families with kids who have all types of disabilities. Also, in my little venture out further into the world that I've ever gone, I had a chance to meet with a travel agent who is also a certified autism travel professional and I had no idea they existed.

Speaker 1: 27:08

Wow, that's awesome. She needs to come on my podcast. How did that work out for you?

Speaker 2: 27:13

So I've ended up in this support lane with her, where the object is, hopefully this year, to get the local airport to meet with us and to run a simulation with a few families who have kids on the spectrum, through the process of actually going to the airport and actually boarding the aircraft, using this to begin to build a tool that can be taught everywhere. And she gave me some fantastic news late this afternoon that I'm still gonna digest tonight and find out more. The airport in Dubai is now fully certified in all of their services for people on the spectrum. I really wanna know how they did it. She wants to know how they did it so that we could possibly get some information and say, hey, we would really like to replicate your efforts here.

Speaker 1: 28:03

Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, this has been great. A lot of great information. What would you like to tell people? What would you like to leave them?

Speaker 2: 28:10

with. I think what I'd like to leave everyone with, because it's relevant to everyone, is, just as meeting one autistic person is meeting one autistic person. This principle foundationally applies to everyone. Everybody is one of one, with something just unique within them that no one else will ever have. That maybe in this fast-paced world that we live in, stopping and actually seeing what some, the whole of a person, seeing the whole of a person, not just their surface and not just overlaying past experiences or bias or trends on them, and then making a decision from there, really start to understand that you're looking at another human being that has complexities just like you do. That's what I'd like people to know more.

Speaker 1: 29:02

That's great. I think that's a great thing to do and say so. I really appreciate you coming on. It's been a great conversation and I definitely want to keep up with how you're doing with your program you're putting out there.

Speaker 2: 29:14

Well, I am extremely honored. I can't thank you enough for you taking the time to have me on. This has been absolutely terrific. You're a brilliant host at what you do. I'm excited to see where your podcast goes. I've been listening to some episodes when I can and everyone that you have on. They just have a real depth of storytelling. That has really just been fantastic.

Speaker 1: 29:43

Well, thanks, I really appreciate that. Thanks for coming on. 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 TonyMantorcom 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.