How this book was made
This is the United States Edition
Section titled “This is the United States Edition”The help in this book is for people in the United States. The phone numbers, programs, laws, and benefits are all American.
Some parts will help anywhere, like calming your body, setting boundaries, or making friends. But if you live in another country, most of the resources here won’t fit where you are.
You can help make an edition for another country. This book is free, and the whole project is open on GitHub. Every Topic follows the same plan, so another country can use the same map and fill in its own help. If you know the free and low-cost help that exists where you live, open an issue on GitHub and let’s talk.
How I used AI to make this book
Section titled “How I used AI to make this book”I used AI tools a lot to make this book. I want to be open about that, and about why.
What AI did
Section titled “What AI did”- Research. AI tools searched the whole country for free and low-cost help for every Topic.
- Checking. AI tools checked each resource on the organization’s own website: that it still exists, who it serves, what it costs, and that the phone number is right. Many of the first results were wrong or out of date. Those were fixed or taken out.
- Writing and organizing. AI helped turn long research notes into short, plain pages. It also keeps a record of what was checked, where, and when.
- Publishing. AI helped build this website and the free ebook. It also runs automatic checks that warn me when a link breaks.
What people do
Section titled “What people do”I read the pages and make the choices: what goes in, how to say hard things, and what this book stands for. Pages about safety, the law, and health also need a look from people who work in those fields. I’m working on that.
Why I’m okay with using AI
Section titled “Why I’m okay with using AI”Many of us grew up around people who were afraid of new things. Sometimes that fear held us back. Mainstream society often gets nervous about new things too. That’s normal.
But it makes sense to use new tools, especially when they can help us claim a real place in the world.
I think of AI as a giant Smart Library. Like a library, it holds a huge amount of information. Unlike a library, it can go looking for what you need, put the pieces together, and explain how they fit your life.
A library can still have a wrong book on the shelf, and AI can still get things wrong. That’s why every resource here was checked against its own official page, and why the record of each check is kept with the book. If you find a mistake, please tell me with the Edit page link at the bottom of any page, or on GitHub.