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Good day, all! I hope this post finds you all well. As many of you may have seen, Monday was World Suicide Prevention Day. I’m here to tell you that the conversation on mental health should not—and will not if I have anything to do with it—end there. There is so much more to talk about that a single day simply can’t cover everything.

That is why I am excited to announce that I will be a co-host of the fourth year of Shattering Stigmas. “What is this?” you may ask. “I’m interested and want to know more about this!” Well, hopefully this short background on the event (borrowed from Tay’s post) helps you:

Three years ago, Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight launched the first Shattering Stigmas, a blogging event dedicated to posts about mental illness to address and challenge the stigmas against it. Through book reviews, discussion posts and lists, Shattering Stigmas has continued conversations around mental illness for the past three years.

Two years ago, during the second year of Shattering Stigmas, I did a guest post for Holly @ The Fox’s Hideaway, which you can find here. It was such a fantastic experience. It gave me a platform and a voice to talk about my mental health story that mattered to me so much that I volunteered to co-host last year. You can find my list of posts and a list of last year’s co-hosts here.

The event will be starting in less than a month, so I need YOU to submit a guest post to help this event cover as many topics and diverse experiences as possible! The event itself runs from October 6th to 20th, so your post will publish on my blog (with all the credit to you of course) sometime between those dates. So if you are an author, blogger, writer, reader or just a simple person who has experience talking about mental health, please consider contributing to this event. The tentative deadline for submissions is October 1st.

Submissions can be about any topic relating to mental health. This includes dealing with the symptoms mental illness, watching a loved one live with mental illness, the stigmas we face, maintaining mental health, anything! I also highly encourage you to submit if you can speak from an intersectional perspective. This includes people of color, queer people, disabled people, people outside of the United States (especially those who live outside of other “world powers” like the UK, Canada, etc.), people who are physically chronically ill,  etc., etc., etc. I want to hear from everyone.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “Well, jeez, Ben. I’d really like to participate, but I don’t really have any ideas for a submission.” Fear not! I have some examples that you can tweak and run with. Ideas for posts include:

• Book review of a book with mental illness representation
• A discussion post about a book you love with mental illness rep
• Discussion post about identity and mental illness
• A Q&A!
• List post of your favorite books that talk about mental illness, of some tips for dealing with mental illness, of things you wish every knew about a specific mental illness, etc.
• A day in the life of someone with “insert mental illness“

Now, if you love the concept of this event, you want to participate, and you have an idea, but you’re not sure if you’re the right person for this event or that you think your post won’t be good enough, let me tell you: The world needs your voice! The whole purpose of Shattering Stigmas is to talk about what we usually hear in whispers, and if your voice can help us shout these messages, that means we don’t just want but need to hear from you!

Lastly, to submit an idea, please fill out the Google form at the bottom of the page. If you have questions, do not hesitate to contact me or comment below. I am available through email, Twitter, and Instagram.

I look forward to seeing your ideas and working with you to end the stigma around mental illness!