May 2026 Mental and Emotional Support Grant Awarded to Autism Chrysalis LLC

We’re excited to announce the May $10,000 Business-Category: Mental and Emotional Support Grant recipient. Congratulations to Heather Cook, founder of Autism Chrysalis LLC.

Recently, WomensNet Advisory Board member Marcia Layton Turner sat down with Heather for an exclusive interview. You can listen to their conversation and view the transcript below.

Video Transcript

Marcia: Welcome, and thank you all for tuning in to learn from our WomensNet business-specific grant winner today, who is Heather Cook of Autism Chrysalis. The business-specific category for May was mental and emotional support.

Marcia: So let’s tell everybody a little bit about you and your company. Heather. What do you sell? Where did you get the idea? And how are things going?

Heather: Sure. So I work with people who have figured out, mostly as adults, that they’re autistic or autistic and ADHD. And I figured out that I’m autistic at 33. I got diagnosed at 34, and that was a turning point in my life. It explained so much why relationships had been hard, why I’d always say the awkward thing, why I needed things to be just so, and got so upset at changes. But it also explained why I was really good at some things that other people struggled with.

And I spent the next few years completely rebuilding my life from the ground up, processing my history through this new lens, figuring out my sensory needs, and healing old wounds. The depression and anxiety faded, and I finally broke the cycle of burning out every few years. I’ve been burnout-free since 2015.

After a few years, people noticed the differences in me and started asking me to talk to their cousin, their friend who was autistic, and I found out that I was actually good at it, and I liked it. When I was working through my own stuff, I looked for help, and there was almost nothing out there designed for autistic adults, or nothing that wasn’t pathologizing.

So, I started this coaching practice, Autism Chrysalis, at the beginning of 2021. I’m now a credentialed professional certified coach with ICF [International Coaching Federation] and a Martha Beck-certified master coach, and I’ve logged over 2,000 coaching hours one-on-one with private clients. And I’ve made several online courses and workshops about common issues to reach more people than I can serve individually.

The thing is, when you realize as an adult that you’re autistic or AuDHD, autistic and ADHD, it’s huge. But understanding why life has been so hard doesn’t just suddenly make it better. There’s still so much baggage from decades of being told that you were broken or difficult or too much. What I help people with is going from understanding to actually making things better because I’ve been through it myself.

Marcia: Amazing. Thank you.

So now let’s talk a little bit about some of the resources that you found especially helpful as you were getting started, or even as you started to grow?

Heather: Okay, so one thing that was really important to me from the beginning of my business was finding other entrepreneurs who were teaching ethical marketing. Of course, I knew I needed to let people know the work I’m doing exists, but there’s always been a tension for me between that and not wanting anyone to feel pressured or talked into something. For me, it’s a matter of honoring their personal sovereignty.

My clients have often spent their whole lives being pushed into things that didn’t fit them. And the last thing that I want is for my marketing to feel like more of that. It should be about helping them figure out if what I’m offering is a good fit. So finding people like Tad Hargrave and Kelly Diels, who were building businesses around genuine connection and high-consent practices and modeling how to do that, was so important. It shaped how I structured everything right from the beginning.

And one other thing is the autistic community itself. There’s a huge amount of peer knowledge and lived experience being shared openly, people figuring things out together. A lot of that didn’t exist 10 years ago when I figured out that I’m autistic, but it’s growing, and I’ve contributed to that by sharing a lot of genuinely valuable resources completely for free. And that collective support has been so important, both personally and professionally.

Marcia: Wonderful. So, you brought up the kind of marketing you didn’t want to be associated with, so what have you seen so far that has worked?

Heather: Well, as I’ve already touched on, my primary marketing strategy has been creating genuinely useful free content and putting it out into the world. Free workshops and articles on things like how to recover from autistic burnout, what to expect in the later identified autism journey, how to figure out your sensory differences, and practical tips on how to tell people that you’re autistic. Content that resonates with people, makes them feel seen and understood, and solves genuine problems. And some of the people who see that will want to go deeper and will naturally look to see what else I have, and that’s created a lot of organic SEO.

Just in the last year, I’ve started to learn more about SEO and get more intentional with it. About 50% of the people who reach out to me say that they found me through an internet search. So my honest advice would be to make something that’s genuinely valuable, and then make it easy for the people who are already looking for that to find it.

Marcia: So, last question. What’s one thing that the WomensNet community can do to show support for your business?

Heather: Well, first, please let me say how much it means to me to be recognized like this. This has been so validating in a way that’s really hard to put into words. I have spent most of my life being the odd one out. And for an organization that I respect, like WomensNet, to look at this work and say that it matters, that even awkward people like me matter, that this work is worth supporting, it’s going to make a real difference for what I can do next.

And then the one thing that I would ask is, if anything that I’ve said today resonates with you or you know someone who’s figured out that they’re autistic or AuDHD, please send them to autismchrysalis.com. I put out free content regularly. And if what they find speaks to them and they feel a little less alone and a little more seen and understood, that’s the whole reason that I do this work.

Marcia: Terrific, Heather. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, making the time to be here today, and congratulations again for being our May business-specific grant winner.