Resources:
Where to find ACTUAL (Accurate) Information on ACTUAL Mental Illnesses

Every year since 2004, I post in the Mental Illness thread on NaNoWriMo, a list of places where authors can find actual/accurate information on a variety of mental illnesses and physical disabilities to help them write their characters more accurately. Most of these site also have lists of other sites as well.

Here for you now, is that list:

Act Early on Developmental Concerns: Partnering with Early Intervention 

Action on Mental Illness 

ADDitude 

Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder at risk for bullying

Advancing Futures for Adults with Autism 

Advice for autistic adults about work - NASAlmost half of kids with autism are bullied, study shows

American Association of People with Disabilities 

American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities 

American Council of the Blind 

American Diabetes Association 

American Foundation for the Blind 

American Lung Association 

American Medical Association 

American Psychological Association 

American Psychological Association's Trauma Psychology Division 

American Psychologist® 

American Trauma Society 

Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit 

An Anti-Bullying Intervention for Children with Autism 

Anxiety and Depression Association of America 

AnxietySocialNet - Agoraphobia support groups and more 

Arc (formerly known as Association for Retarded Citizens of the United States; the oldest mental health advocacy group, founded in 1953)   

Archives of Scientific Psychology®

Are Autistic People More Sensitive To Trauma

Asian American Journal of Psychology 

Aspies For Freedom 

Assistance Dog Advocacy Project  

Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback 

Association for Real Change 

Association of University Centers on Disabilities 

Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health 

Australasian Society for Traumatic Stress Studies 

Autism Awareness.com  

Autism Awareness Online 

Autism and Asperger Syndrome Educator’s Guides, Organization for Autism Research (OAR) 

AutismCares 

Autism Genetics Initiative Data Archive 

Autism Genetics Resource Exchange 

Autism Network International 

Autism NOW 

Autism Society 

Autism Society of Maine 

Autism Speaks 

The Autism Speaks Transition Tool Kit 

Autistic Self Advocacy Network 

Autism Source, Autism Society of America (ASA) 

Autism Spectrum Disorder and bullying 

Autism Wandering Awareness Alerts Response Education (AWAARE) 

Behavior Analysis: Research and Practice 

Biofeedback Foundation of Europe 

BC Schizophrenia Society Foundation 

Brain Poke 3.0 

Brian Othmer Foundation 

Bullying and Autism - Medical Home Portal 

Bullying and Autism Spectrum Disorders: guidance for 

Bullying and autism spectrum disorders - Norfolk Schools 

Bullying Experiences Among Children and Youth with Autism 

Bullying For Parents 

Bullying No Way! 

Bully Stoppers - Victorian Government

Canadian Foundation for Trauma Research & Education 

Canadian National Institute for the Blind 

Canadian Psychology / Psychologie canadienne 

Cannon (1942/1957). "Voodoo" death. (Walter Cannon's seminal article on death through the shock of terror.)

Care For Disabled Veterans: Acknowledging Post-traumatic Stress Disorder from Iraq War Experience 

Caring for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Resource Toolkit for Clinicians 

CDC’s Disability and Health Program 

CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Funding Opportunities 

The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) 

Center for Evolutionary Psychology 

Child Abuse Prevention Network 

The Child Survivor of Traumatic Stress [newsletter] 

The ChildTrauma Academy 

Child Trauma Institute 

Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder 

Children’s Health Insurance Program 

Children with Disabilities and Special Needs - Patricia E Kefalas Dudek - Advocate For Elders, People With Disabilities, and Their Families:  

Choices In Recovery 

Clinical Practice in Pediatric Psychology® 

ClinicalTrials.gov 

Code of Federal Regulations, Title 45, Part 46 

Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth 

Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates 

Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology® 

Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health 

Davidson College - Abnormal Psychology in the Department of Psychology - (not a group, but lots of info about a wide range of mental illness - great if you need a general definition of what an illness is, written in non-medical language) 

The Decline in Child Sexual Abuse Cases. 

Department of Education 

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance 

Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics Online 

Developmental Screening/Testing Coding

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 

Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund 

Disability Rights Movement - Patricia E Kefalas Dudek - Advocate For Elders, People With Disabilities, and Their Families:  

Disabled American Veterans 

Disabled Peoples' International 

DisAbled Women's Network Canada 

Down Syndrome Advocacy Foundation 

Dreams for Kids 

Drew Westen's Lab of Personality & Psychopathology 

Easter Seals 

Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma 

EEG & Clinical Neuroscience Society 

The Effects of Psychological Trauma on Children with Autism

Elder Care - Patricia E Kefalas Dudek - Advocate For Elders, People With Disabilities, and Their Families:  

Emerson Training Seminars 

The Empowerment Council 

End of Life Issues - Patricia E Kefalas Dudek - Advocate For Elders, People With Disabilities, and Their Families: 

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 

Eric H. Chudler's Home Page 

European Federation of Associations of Families with Mental Illness 

EFORT European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology 

European Society for Trauma and Dissociation 

European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies 

Exploring the Nature of Traumatic Memory 

Family Association for Mental Health Everywhere 

Families for Depression Awareness 

Family Council - Empowerment For Families 

Find Your Local Trauma Center 

Foundations of Positive Psychology 

Freedom From Fear 

F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Down Syndrome Advocacy Group 

Friends for Mental Health 

Galloway's Society for the Blind 

Handicap International 

Health Psychology® 

Health Resources and Services Administration 

Human Behavior and Evolution Society 

Infinite Ability 

Information Sheet Bullying and Autism Spectrum Disorders 

International Bipolar Foundation 

The International Classification of Diseases 

International Consortium for Brain Mapping 

International Disability and Development Consortium 

International Society for Neuronal Regulation 

International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies 

International Trauma Studies Program 

Internet Mental Health (a database of links to mental health websites - not a professional organization - very old site, some links broken/some info outdated) 

Journal of Abnormal Psychology® 

Journal of Applied Psychology® 

The Journal of Injury and Violence Research (JIVR) 

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology® 

Journal of Rural Mental Health® 

Leaving the Mentally Ill Out in the Cold (newspaper/blog post) 

Learning Disabilities Association of America - Disability Rights and Advocacy 

Lew Goldberg's International Personality Item Pool 

Life Journey Through Autism Series, Organization for Autism Research (OAR) 

Lyme Disease.org 

M-CHAT 

M-CHAT Scoring Instructions

M-CHAT Scoring Template

M-CHAT Follow-up Interview 

Maeve: Psychiatric Service Dog and Mental Health Advocate 

Maine Autism Alliance 

Marriage Advocates - Infidelity and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder 

Mencap (The Royal Society for Mentally Handicapped Children and Adults) 

Mental Disability Advocacy Center 

Mental Health Advocacy Inc 

Mental Health Advocacy Services 

Mental Health America 

Mental Health for Youth in Armed Conflict 

Mental Health Services Locator, National Mental Health Information Center 

Mental Wellness Today (magazine - has large article database) 

MindFreedom International 

MIT: OpenCourseWare 

Mood Disorders Society of Canada 

Mood Disorders Association of Ontario -  Helpful Links 

Muscular Dystrophy Association 

Naropa University: Somatic Counseling Psychology 

National Advocate for People with Down Syndrome 

National Association of County and City Health Officials 

National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) 

National Alliance on Mental Illness 

National Association of the Deaf 

National Association of Special Education Teachers 

National Autistic Society 

National Centre Against Bullying - The Alannah and Madeline Foundation

National Center for Education Statistics 

National Center for Health Statistics 

National Center of Medical Home Initiatives for Children with Special Needs 

National Center for PTSD

National Child Traumatic Stress Network 

National Database for Autism Research 

National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (NICHCY) 

National MS Society 

National Network of Adult and Adolescent Children who have a Mentally Ill Parent 

The National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorders 

NCP Clinicians Trauma Update Online 

Neuropsychology Central 

NeuroScience Center 

North American Society for Childhood Onset Schizophrenia 

Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner - Australian Government

Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services 

Open Culture: Free Online Classes 

Open The Doors 

Operation Autism for Military Families 

A Parent’s Guide to Evidence-Based Practice and Autism 

Parkinson's Disease Foundation 

Personality Theories 

Pet Partners - Denied Access, Now What? 

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - Patricia E Kefalas Dudek - Advocate For Elders, People With Disabilities, and Their Families:  

The PTSD Alliance 

The Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Alliance 

PTSD Research Quarterly 

Prejudice. No way! - NSW Government

Primate Handedness and Brain Lateralization 

Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy® 

Psychology of Violence 

Racism. No way! - NSW Government

Raindrop: Death Education for Children of all Ages 

Recovered Memories of Sexual Abuse: Research and Resources 

Reflections on The Problem of Psychic Trauma 

ReThink Mental Illness 

Retrieving, Assessing, and Classifying Traumatic Memories 

Sane Australia 

Schizophrenia and Related Disorders Alliance of America - SARDAA 

Schizophrenia Awareness Association of India 

Schizophrenia News and Information 

Schizophrenia Society of Canada 

School Accreditation, National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) 

Society for Neuroscience 

Special Education Advocacy 

Special Education Technical Assistance and Dissemination Network 

Spina Bifida Association of America 

Stress, Trauma and Sleep in Children 

Suicide.org 

Suicide Awareness Voices of Education 

Teaching Tips for Children and Adults with Autism 

Terrorism Injuries: Information, Dissemination and Exchange (TIIDE) 

Time To Change (personal stories about mental health stigma and discrimination, written by people with mental illnesses - updated daily) 

Trauma.org 

Trauma Clinic, London 

Trauma Intervention Programs, Inc. 

Trauma Pages 

The Traumatic Stress Centre (Wales) 

Trauma Survivors Network 

UCLA Brain Mapping Center 

United Cerebral Palsy 

UK Psychological Trauma Society 

University of Washington - Fact Sheets - Facts About Mental Illness and Violence 

Using Drawing as Intervention with Traumatized Children 

Visible Human Project 

VOR (formorly known as Voice of the Retarded; one of the oldest mental health advocacy groups, founded in 1983)  

Washington Autism Alliance & Advocacy 

Webcast Berkeley: online courses & speakers at UC Berkeley

The Whole Brain Atlas 

William Calvin's Page 

Young Children with Challenging Behavior 

Zero to Three 

Autism & Me:
The Squidoo Lens
10th Anniversary
(2007 to 2017)

During NaNoWriMo 2007's novel writing contest, a forum thread was started... a young author wanted to write an Autistic main character and asked on the NaNoWriMo forum if any one could tell her how to write a mental illness that she did not have and also knew no one with... the result was a 700 page non-fiction book, called "Autism and Me: On Being An Adult With Autism, A Look Into My Everyday Life."

Originally published on LuLu as a book for sale, a month later I unpublished it and released it as a free to read online series of articles on Squidoo. I continued to add new articles to the series on a near monthly basis in the 10 years since then.

The series of pages linked below, are those articles, the 2007 originals, the ones written in the years since, and the 2017 10th Anniversary updates on what has changed in the decade since those first articles were released.

Don't Know Where To Start?
Start With These Two First

A Plea To NaNoWriMo Overachievers: 
If You're Gonna Write Autistic Characters,
Then Stop Research Asperger's And 
Start Researching Autism For A Change!

"Can anyone tell me how to write characters with autism while avoiding stereotypes? Thank you."

Here is my response to a question from the NaNoWriMo forums on avoiding the stereo types when writing about characters with Autism:

My response, resulted in a 700+ page non-fiction book on living with autism. 

The response, went off into a rant, not because of the person asking the question, but instead, because of the 300+ Asperger's patients who responded to the question to tell her how to write ASPEGER'S characters, all while claiming their Asperger's was the SAME THING as Autism.

More then 2,000 forum posts were added to the thread, by these 300+ people, boldly spreading huge amounts of extremely inaccurate misinformation about what Autism is and is not, and helping to spread the urban myth that Aspergers is a type of Autism.

Sadly after taking 3 days to read every post on the thread, I finally reached the end to find that not even ONE of the more then 2,000 posts had given her ANY information about Autism.

My response is too long for one page, all pages are being linked to here:

Think you know what it's like to live with Autism?

You might be surprised how little you really know.

A look at REAL Autism and the myth spread by those with a self-diagnosis.

Advertisement:

Autism and The Obsessions

Undiagnosed, Autism is easily mistaken as Obsessive Compulsive Syndrome. Indeed, it does seem that you can not have Autism without also having OCD.

As an adult, one of the most often asked questions I hear is: Do you have OCD?

I obsess.

I obsess a lot.

I obsess over everything.

My obsessions started early.

One of the earliest things a parent notices about any form of Autism, is that the child is obsessed with keeping things in order. As soon as they are old enough to walk, they start lining up all their toys: from biggest to smallest, or alphabetically by name, or in categories by subject, or by rainbow-order color. I did this. I did this a lot.

When I was about 3, I had a set of wooden blocks. I lined them up, from one end of the house to the other, by shape and color. All the rectangle red blocks came first, followed by the red square blocks, followed by the orange triangles, than the orange circular pillars, next the green square pillars, and finally the long blue road blocks.

The fact that I can, 30 years later, not only remember that I did it, but also remember in what order I put them, is another common factor in Autism: a photographic memory and the ability to remember almost anything instantly as soon as I see it, and than never forget it ever again.

At around 5, I took an interest in baby dolls after each other my grandmothers and my mother all bought me a baby doll for my birthday. My three dolls were always set in order: the one with brown curly hair first, her name was Cristine and I would only dress her in blue; the one with long black hair second, her name was Colleen and I only dressed her in yellow, Natalie was last. Natalie was a bald preemie that drank and wet herself, and she was the one that I took with me every where. I always dressed her in white.

By the time I was 8, I had 28 Barbie dolls, all of which sat on the shelf, again, in order by hair color and race. (I was unusual, in the 1970’s in that I was a white child in Maine who wanted black and Hispanic Barbies — racial colored Barbies were extremely rare and very hard to find back than.) Whenever I changed the outfit on one doll, I changed the outfits on all the dolls, so that they would all match. For example if one was wearing a wedding dress, than all the others had to wear brides maids dresses or if one wore a bathing suit, than they all did.

I don’t know when my love of crayons started. I can’t remember a time when I did not always have crayons at my side. I also don’t remember a time when I didn’t dump out my crayons on the floor and line them up from red to indigo. I also do not remember a time when I have gone to a store, and walked past a box of crayons without buying one. It may be one of my worst obsessions and I’m not sure what triggers it, but it is impossible for me to walk by Crayola Crayons in the store and not buy them! The end result is, well, I have a lot of crayons! I’ve spent 30 years buying every crayon I see, and than coming home dumping them all out on the floor, and lining them up. It’s like, I can’t go on with anything else, until I have first found some crayons and put them in order.

I do know when my love of comic books started. I was 3 years old. We were at a local fish shack restaurant place known as The Maine Castle. We were buying haddock boxes, which was a white paper box with a breaded haddock fillets, a sour pickle, and fries. Basically it was fish and chips, with a different name. The restaurant was run by a Greek guy whom everyone called Lefty. On the counter next to the cash register, he had a big stack of comic books.

It was our tradition, to go to the Maine Castle every weekend, than to Ray’s Lunch Van (now known as Rapid Rays Diner after he made enough money to buy the block and build a diner in the spot where he parked his van). Than, with The Goldeneagle full of food, we picked a star, any star, and followed it. Sometimes we ended up in New Hampshire! This was a ritual which my parents did right up until the day The Goldeneagle died, for some reason, star chasing in any other car just wasn’t the same.

I loved being in the car, however, for me, to sit and do nothing, for hours on end, was impossible. I had to have something to do on these weekly road trips and that something happened one night at the Maine Castle, when I saw a comic book sitting on the counter, which would forever change my life. There on the counter was a bright pink comic book (pink was always a big attraction for me), on it was a duck wearing a top hat (I’m obsessed with top hats, can’t pass one up, collect them wear them, obsess over anyone who wears one), and fighting a big green dragon (I love dragons). I was mesmerized. I sat there reading the book about this crazy old duck off looking for treasure and fighting dragons, and was so instantly hooked. When we left that night with our haddock boxes, Lefty handed me the book and told me I could have it.

Today, 30 years later, I now own one of the world’s largest and most complete collections of Uncle Scrooge comic books, have gotten the autographs of Don Rosa and Alan Young, and am known by the locals, as “that crazy girl in the red frock coat and top hat.” Yep, my Uncle Scrooge obsession went over big time, and I have nearly every comic book ever made which ever featured the crazy old duck even just for a single panel! I not only collect the English comic either. I have a near complete collect of every French edition of Uncle Scrooge ever made, as well as most of the German editions and several Italian, Danish, and Australian editions too. All together: 7,000+ issues, all bagged, boarded, indexed, and in order by publication date. I also have a card catalog to file them by. That’s how big, an obsession caused by Autism can get.

It’s not just my things either. If I’m at someone elses house and they have a box of crayons, I have to dump them out and line them up. If they have a bookshelf and their books are not alphabetized, I can not do anything else until I removed every book off their shelf ad put them in order. If they have a bowl of candy sitting on the table, I have to line them up in order by flavor, brand name, or color. This bothers people, the fact that I do this, and results in very few people allowing me to set foot in their home.

I’m a person that has to have organization and order. I learned the Dewey Decimal System, just so I could properly catalog my private book collection (of 10,000+ books not including the 7,000+ comic books already mentioned). I buy the Crayola Big Box with 120 crayons and the first thing I do is dump it out and put all the crayons in rainbow order from dark red to light red to light orange to dark orange to dark yellow to light yellow and all the way down the line. I do this with my paints, colored pencils, pastels, and even my clothes. I not only know their order visually, but I have all the names of all 120 colors of the crayons memorized and put them in order that way too.

As an adult, I live a very “organized” life. I alphabetize everything or order everything in rainbow-color order, and I have to have everything in it’s place and a place for everything. I always loved crayons, and today am a professional artist, but I still have to have all of my crayons lined up and in order before I can start any drawing.

What bothers me most is that people are always trying to change me and make me do things their way because they think their way is “normal” and that I’m just a freak.

But why? Why do I do this?

you can find out just how far my obsessions can go here: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume and here: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostumeCosts

The section above was originally written in 2007. A 2017 10th Anniversary update is coming soon and will appear in this section below.