For most of his life Mike has been wracked with shame and self-hatred, convinced he was the worst person ever and fantasizing about suicide when he was hospitalized at 15. He and Paul talk about where his self-hate may come from as well as his ADHD, emotionally sterile and achievement-focused childhood, body dysmorphia, cross-dressing, kink as a submissive male, and how he finally summoned the courage and self-love to end an abusive friendship. Mike is a great example of someone learning to embrace his uniqueness instead of hating and shaming himself for it. Follow Mike on Twitter/Instagram: @bizmichael Check out his books: At Least You're Not These Monsters and All The Feelings This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp To try a week of counseling for free go to www.BetterHelp.com/mental and fill out a questionnaire so you can be paired with a licensed counselor. This episode is sponsored by ZipRecruiter. To post your jobs for free go to www.ZipRecruiter.com/first To support the podcast consider becoming a monthly donor via Patreon for as little as $1/month (and get rewards for free like donor-only mini eps where Paul reads responses from the donor-only survey) Go to www.Patreon.com/mentalpod A great way to help the podcast is to donate frequent flyer miles. For details on how to do it go to. www.Mentalpod.com/donate and scroll down to the Frequent Flyer Miles section. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.