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 Color and Fashion

You look like you just walked out of a history book . . . why do you dress like that?

All of my life I have had a close affinity with colors. My cloths in their day-glow, bright, neon, and popping colors, are the first thing people notice about me, and are always the start of every conversation any one has with me.

In my past 34 years of life, nearly every conversation has started with: “Why are you dressed like that?” or some variation of it. I have no explanation for why I wear the things I do. I started dressing like this at about 12 years old when I learned how to sew my own cloths and have dressed like this ever since.

Before the fire of 2006, my contact with humans was limited to seeing people in church on Sunday. So before 2006, I had no idea, that from Monday to Saturday women do not wear long flowing bright colored dresses. I had never seen a woman dress any differently that in “Sunday Dress” before. This revelation, shocked me.

When I try to explain this to people asking about my cloths they respond to say: “But didn’t you see people on TV?” uhm . . . no . . . for many years we did not have a TV. We did have a VCR to watch movies, but, when you consider the movies I watched: Labyrinth, 1776, Scrooge, Fiddler on the Roof. My Fair Lady, Sherlock Holmes, Pirates of the Caribbean, Oliver . . . you’ll understand how I was completely unaware of the fact that hoop skirts, trains, and huge long gowns are not what people wear anymore.

You see, I thought people DID dress just like they did on movies like My Fair Lady, and was no fully aware of the fact that people stopped dressing like I do, some 250 years ago.

My family lived completely isolated from contact with Americans. We had no TV. My parents dressed like that. My mom was a seamstress and had retracted every single dress worn by Ma, Mary, and Laura Ingalls from the Little House on the Prairie TV show and that was the ONLY thing she would wear. The ONLY people we ever had contact with was other Gypsy relatives who dressed just like my mom did, and members of the local LDS/Mormon church congregation, who ALSO only ever wore "prairie dresses".

The only ones of us who didn't wear gingham and calico prairie dresses, were the little girls who ALSO wore in addition to prairie dresses, the elaborate sequence "pageant dresses" which my mother also sewed.

When I was 5 years old my favorite dress to wear was a red hoop shirt. At 8 a pink ruffled hoop shirt made of 25 yards of fabric was what I wore every day. At ag 10, my most worn dress was a rhinestone encrusted purple damask ballgown. These were all dresses my mom designed and sewed and I was not given a choice in if I wanted to wear them or not.

From the 1970s until 2005, I had no reason to think that the rest of the world dressed any different, because I'd had no contact with any one outside of our clan and our church and the only movies I was allowed to watch were the ones which showed people dressing this way. Before 2005, I had never seen any one who DID NOT dress like this.

One of the problems with people classifying my cloths as "she has autism, that's why she dresses like an insane person" is the fact that they fail to realize, I dress exactly the same way as the 400+ adults I grew up with and this "historical costume" style of dressing, was me being perfectly normal and wearing exactly the same thing every one around me was wearing.

When people comment on the capes... again, this was normal every day wear. My mother had me wearing capes before I was even old enough to walk. There isn't a time in my life when I wasn't wearing capes.

I had no reason to think that the way our family, clan and church dressed, was "different" from what was seen as "normal" because, for our culture, this WAS normal.

It's actually quite hurtful that Americans are quick to bully me based on my clothes and say that my Autism is why I dress this way, when they are not considering the fact that EVERY ONE in the culture I grew up in dresses the same way I do.

I love history, but I’m afraid I’ve never studied anything beyond the time Napoleon and Hitler. My parents would not allow textbooks that taught any history after the 1940s.  I started out with ancient history and move upward through the thousands of years, I tried to study such things on my own, not sure why my mother had forbidden "modern history" but when I got to Napoleons evil acts followed by Hitler’s worse acts, I decided that I dislike modern history and did not study any part of history any newer than Hitler.

So, while I have a very good knowledge of what people wore from centuries BC until the 1930’s, I had no real idea of what people wore after the 1930’s and was not aware of the drastic change that had occurred.

But I fail to comprehend how the way I dress has anything to do with Autism, but people say it does.

Of course there are also people who say that I may have what they call "learned autism" and they say that it is possible every person (all 400+ of us) in my family may ALL be autistic, because Gypsy culture teaches us to hug no one, make no eye contact with no one, dress "funny", do not socialize with gentiles (Americans), avoid noise-music-dance-etc, and let every one have their own personal space... all that and the fact that we Gypsies become highly anxious around the violent, hate mongering gentiles who make a habit of beating us up.

So apparently: because we Gypsies have manners and morals, that means ALL Gypsies are autistic?

Because we Gypsies are terrified of the viscous, violent Americans who make a daily habit of invading our privacy and trespassing on our land, that means ALL us Gypsies therefor have Autism?

Because we Gypsies dress differently from the Americans, therefore ALL us Gypsies have Autism?

I don't get it, but that's what this psychologist guy said. He said our entire family, the whole clan, all 400+ of us, had Autism because he had never seen anything like us.

For the past 30 years, I have worn the huge skirts, the long gowns, the hooded capes, the monk-like habits, the kimonos, because that is what people in the history books wore and the history book were my only contact with people.

Like I said, before the bomb blew up my house in 2006, I only left the farm to go to church and I wasn’t aware of the fact that people wore very different cloths to church from what they wear the rest of the week. I just thought all women wore dresses and all men wore suits.

I think it is safe to say that I am suffering from extreme culture shock at learning that people dress very different;y from me, because I wasn’t aware that I was dressing any different than any one else, until I was suddenly forced to live in contact with humans after the fire of 2006.

More about the vandalism, harassment and how I became homeless can be found here: http://www.squidoo.com/OnBeingHomeless2

The section above was originally written in 2007.

A 2017 10th Anniversary update is coming soon and will appear in this section below.

More topics I write about:

52 Stories in 52 Weeks Writing Challenge 50000 adventure advice advice for writers aliens animals Art Arts author authors Autism birds  blogging books CafePress cats characters Copper Cockeral Cards and Gifts CosPlay EelKat Etiole faeries Family fantasy fiction friends Genres geography goals Gothic harassment Hobbies horror Just For Writers kimono LDS Life life blogging Maine making money online Mormons my thoughts on... NaNovel 2009 NaNoWriMo national novel writing month Old Orchard Beach Phooka phookas publishing readers sci-fi science fiction sewing short stories Squidoo Stories The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints The Ruby Throated Humming Bird The Twighlight Manor UFOs Wendy C. Allen witchcraft witches words per day write writer writer's block writers writing writing contest Writing Exercise Writing Prompts: Writing Tip of the Day Zazzle

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