Hey, it's me, Cupid. I've shot you with an arrow because it's February, but don't worry. This arrow is not one that is going to make you fall in love with someone against your will, because that's gross. Instead, I've shot you in the ear with an audio arrow arrow arrow arrow is this episode of this podcast. Before we continue my first ever journey through the Harry Potterer series, just a few quick announcements. First up, on February 14th, 2022, the Potterless Merch Store is changing. We are going fully digital, since the podcast isn't live anymore, trying to make some room so that I can make stuff for my new shows and my ongoing shows like the News Olympian, meddling adults, et cetera. So after February 14th, there's not going to be any more physical items on the potterless merch store. There will still be the digital stuff, but the physical stuff is getting shipped to me, and I will only be able to sell it at live shows going forward. But it's not all bad news because we are having a clearance sale because of this situation. So from now until February 13th, there's a bunch of stuff that's 25% off, like the shirts and the hoodies and the mugs and the notebooks. So if you head on over to ponderlesspodcast.com slash merch, this is your last chance to get some of those things

unless you come to a live show. And also, you'll get it at a discounted price. So head on over to

potterlesspodcast.com slash merch. And that sale ends on February 13th. Speaking of live shows,

we've got some live shows coming up. And as long as things tend to look good in terms of safety reasons, we should have some more shows later on in the year. But right now, on the docket, for March 3rd, 2022, we've got Nashville, Tennessee. For March 4th, we've got Atlanta, Georgia. For March 31st, we've got Washington, D.C. And for April 21st, we've got Seattle, Washington. If you want to get tickets, if you live in or near those cities and you want to see a show, you can go to potterlesspodcast.com slash live right now and get tickets and follow us on social media. Just search Potterless on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. You'll find us for updates about if we are coming to a city near you later down the road. I've got some things in the works. We just got to get something signed, but you're not going to want to miss those announcements, so follow us on social

media. And speaking of me and live shows, we're doing a horse digital live show on February 3rd.

It's a Thursday at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. We're going to rank all of the NBA dance teams from

worst to first. It's going to be very fun, and you can get tickets at bit.ly slash horse 2322, all overcase for the letters and numbers for the numbers. And finally, let me just give you a little context about what you are about to listen to. So this was part of a Zoom happy hour that I did with the Orange County branch of Nami. Nami is the National Alliance on Mental Illness. And we talked about Harry Potter and how things would have been so much different and so much better if they had a therapist or a guidance counselor, something in the school.

We talk about all the different ways mental health was brought up in the story, the good, the bad, the in between.

If you enjoyed the episodes that we did about diversity, inclusion, anti-Semitism, those types of episodes of Potter lists who we did towards the end of the weekly run. You're really going to enjoy this one, Amanda from Nami, who was leading the talk with me. She was absolutely fantastic. I think we touched on a lot of really great things. And if you want to see the video version of this, you can go to the Potterless YouTube account. Just search for potteryless in YouTube, or you can go to the link in this episode description and check it out there. So there will be a video version there of well. Keep in mind, this was from Zoom, so the audio will sound like a Zoom call. I did my best to try to make it sound the cleanest and smoothest and silkiest as possible, but there's only so much you can do with Zoom audio. Also, just a general content warning for this episode.

We're going to talk about a lot of different mental health situations that come up in the book. If any of those are uncomfortable for you, I'd say just skip ahead about 30 seconds to a minute and see if what we talk about next is something that you're more comfortable with. Just wanted to lay that out there. we cover a lot and I think it's really nice but if any of those things are stuff that you

don't want to hear just get past them I. I hope you enjoy this. I think you

will enjoy this. And without further ado, let's get into this very special episode of Potterless,

Harry Potter, and The Missing Therapist. All right. Welcome everyone to Happy Hour. So I am Amanda. I am one of the program coordinators here with Nami Orange County. If for those of you unfamiliar or new to us,

Happy Hour is one of our teen and young adult programs we offer here where we take an hour to

just discuss mental health, take an account our self-care and mental wellness, and just have an

hour of happiness. So we are, Nami, we're part of the National Alliance on Mental

Illness. And, you know, thank you guys for tuning in and joining us. Jerica will be dropping in the chat.

We do have a survey. This as a nonprofit is super, super important to us where it allows us to create

more programs at no cost to our community

and anything that we can do for the future, let us know in that survey. We really, really appreciate it.

And so I think without further ado, let's definitely crack into this. So I want to kind of kick

off this whole conversation of let's dress, you know, those moments where there are themes that are little hinted at, our metaphors for throughout this series, but they may not necessarily be totally positive.

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