My fellow hosts and I have been planning this event since September, and now it’s October 21st, and Shattering Stigmas 4.0 is officially over. I would have posted my wrap-up yesterday, but it has been a long, anxiety-filled weekend for me. So now that I have time I’m just going to spew all the thoughts in my head about this event all over this blog post. Enjoy <3

First and foremost, I have some thank you’s to send out. I cannot thank Tay, Madalyn, Kitty, and Marie enough for co-hosting this event with me. For most of us, it was our first time hosting a blogging event, and I wouldn’t have chosen any other people to freak out and fumble around with! I think we did amazingly for our first blog event hosting gig. And another thank you to Tay for taking over this event from previous organizers. Yes, all five of us put a ton of work and effort into making this happen, but the other four of us wouldn’t have been here if Tay hadn’t organized the event itself and been there along the way to give us tips and tricks to co-hosting.

I want to give another thank you to everyone who wrote the outstanding guest posts on my blog: Gretchen Gomez, Harker D., Maram, Yvonne Wabai, Meggan Turner, Sav, Dan Hunsaker, Rhiannon Rae, Kitty, and Maf. Without your courage to tell your stories and add your perspective to the conversation about mental health, not only would Shattering Stigmas not exist, but we would be so many steps behind where we are now. Keep advocating, keep sharing, keep fighting.

I won’t name them all here, but I want to thank all the guest posters on the other four hosts’ blogs. I’ve read through almost all 64 posts (and will be reading the rest in the next couple days as I settle back into my regular routine), and everything that everyone has had to share is so powerful, and I love it. Whether you wrote a deeply personal piece, gave some tips for taking care of yourself, or suggested the best mental health reads you know, you’ve done so much for the conversation.

Now that I’ve written out all of my thank you’s, I want to highlight a number I mentioned above: Between the five blogs that we posted on, we collectively published 64 posts about mental health during the two weeks that Shattering Stigmas ran. Can you believe that?! If I hadn’t kept a list of all of those posts, I don’t think I would believe it myself. That’s amazing! I highly suggest you click the link not just to find the posts on my blog, but to see the content that the others hosted. After all, I only posted 22% of the content for Shattering Stigmas 4.0, so if you’re only reading from Ace Of Bens, you’re missing out.

Lastly, I want to mention the giveaway that I hosted through Twitter. It is now closed, and I want to thank everyone who entered. I’ll be announcing the winner tomorrow morning!

Thank you once again to all the hosts, guest posters, and the readers! It has been an amazing two weeks discussing and exploring mental health with all you, and I hope you all continue the conversation through the other months of the year. Take care of yourselves! 💙