Me....

I'm Andi. Because I've never blogged before, I really don't know what to say on here, so I'm just going to do what I do best when writing: launch into a random sampling of thoughts and ramble on about what's on my mind at the moment. From what I understand about blogging, this is usually how it's done anyway....

So...My full name is Andrea Dietrich, I'm 28 years old, and married to a wonderful man named Chris. I graduated in December 2006 from Grand Valley State University with a BA in Behavioral Science (I tell everyone its a BA in BS, which is probably closer to the truth...) I'm currently working as an independent contractor for GVSU as a C-Print Captionist. Basically, that means that I go to class with a deaf student and type what the professor says at as close to real-time as I can manage. The student and I each get a laptop, and the C-Print software wirelessly (or wired, depending on the setup) sends what I type to the student's laptop, so she can read along. The C-Print program also has an abbreviation language built in so I can type faster...but that does mean that I tend to fall into typing that way when I'm not using the software. If you all reading out there find me using abbreviations like "u" for you, or "n" for and, its not because (bkz) I'm being lazy, I just forgot I wasn't C-Printing for a moment (these things tend to become reflex). Anyway, it's a great job, which I actually enjoy (which is not something I thought I'd ever be able to say about work) -- and as a bonus it pays really well, which is nice! It means that my husband and I are finally living in an actually nice apartment that lets us keep all our pets (3 cats and 2 domestic fancy rats) openly -- they're extremely pet-friendly :).

In my free time I play role-playing games (I'm currently only playing in a couple -- a White Wolf vampire LARP, and a tabletop game called The Everlasting, run by Chris.), and I sing in some area choirs (the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus, the Grand Rapids Bach Chorale, and sometimes my church choir). I also spend time with the Pack, a very close group of friends/adopted family. I met them through gaming, and although I'm only currently gaming with a few of them (in the LARP), all of us in the area get together every week for a potluck dinner, and every now and again for a movie or birthday party or whatever. When I'm not doing stuff with the Pack, working, or singing, mostly I read and watch too much tv. I'm currently very into Doctor Who, a fun British tv show, (thanks again to my husband and one of the other Pack people, Kirstin -- it's their fault that I'm now obsessed!) We try to get together weekly or so to watch episodes on DVD. I read almost anything, but my favorites are anything by Katherine Kurtz or Stephen King, as well as the Narnia books, the Lord of the Ring trilogy (although I haven't read those in a while), and I still have a fond place for The Secret Garden.

Phew...obligitory intro done, for now. I'll probably come up with more to add to it later, but honestly I'm guessing most people reading this blog will either already know me, and therefore know most of what I wrote already, or won't care. Anyway, the real reason I started this blog was because I wanted a place I could write publicly about my goals regarding autism, Asperger's, and advocacy. A little over a year ago, I was (finally) diagnosed officially with Asperger's syndrome, after several years of suspecting I was on the spectrum, and a lifetime wondering why I was so frikkin different from everyone I knew. I'm not going to go into the details of my childhood now (I've only got an hour before I have another captioning session), so suffice it to say that I was a strange, socially awkward kid, and I've grown up into a strange, socially awkward adult. Due to Aspergers, I have problems with social interaction and getting to know people, I hate talking on the phone and otherwise interacting with people I don't know (and even more with people I've only met in passing!), and I have a variety of other difficulties that tend to vary depending on the day, my mood, or any of a thousand other things that make my life interesting. I was also diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder at the same time I got my Aspergers diagnosis, but at least this is pretty simple -- basically all it does is make my life more stressful and make it more difficult to cope with little problems that inevitably crop up in life. I got very lucky in my husband, as he's amazingly patient with both my social awkwardness and my anxiety issues, and is amazingly supportive.

Oops, tangent again. Back to Aspergers, basically, I came to the conclusion many years ago, even before I knew what Aspergers was, that despite my oddness and associated difficulties I didn't want to change that part of me, in part because I think it made me a nicer person, but mostly because when I'm not feeling bad about myself I actually like being different. When I found out that there was a neurological reason that for the differences, I was actually overjoyed after I got over the shock, because I finally had an explanation for the things that made my life so complicated sometimes.

This realization also gave my professional life more focus. When I discovered AS I was a Psychology major at GVSU, planning to eventually work in an elementary school so I could help kids who had the same difficulties I'd had as a kid, with bullying and teasing and such. I had a pretty crappy elementary school experience, and I wanted to help other kids avoid some of what I went through. However, once I discovered that in all likelihood my school experience was directly related to AS, my focus shifted. Since most people focus on working with and for children with autism, and adults are frequently ignored, I decided to change the focus of my eventual career goals to working with adults with autism. Since graduating, that's changed a little bit, too. Right now, I don't have an ultimate career goal, since I've got a really great job and my husband has a few years before he graduates (to work in a similar field). Until he graduates and we start looking into graduate schools together (since we'll likely go out of state we're tentatively planning to attend the same school), I want to put together a study looking at anxiety and depression levels in autistic adolescents and adults who have been through different forms of autism treatment (ABA-based programs, Floortime, special diets, etc.) Because of the huge amount of anecdotal evidence that ABA programs, especially, are very stressful for autistic individuals, I would expect to find higher levels of anxiety and depression in people who graduated from them. I've only got very preliminary ideas so far -- but I'll post more later. Right now, I have to rest my fingers (and give you a break -- anyone still reading, I salute you!).