Hey, this is LGBTQ and A. I'm Jeffrey Masters, and this is a show where we get to know different members of the LGBTQ community.

Today I'm talking with Dr. Michelle Stevens. Dr. Stevens is a psychologist and the author of Scared Selfless,

a new memoir about how she triumphed after childhood of sexual abuse and the mental illness it created.

Stay tuned.

Hello.

Hello. It's good to be here.

Thank you. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. This is very exciting for me.

Good. Thank you. I'm glad to chat. You have had quite a life. Thank you. Welcome to the show. Thank you. This is very exciting for me. Good. Thank you. I'm glad to chat.

You have had quite a life. I have had quite a life, yes. Is that an understatement?

You know, when you're the one living it, it doesn't seem so extraordinary, but when you write it all down in a book,

other people start to go, wow, that's quite a life. Yeah. I can't imagine this was easy to write. It was not easy to write.

It took me twice as long as it was supposed to. And it was really hard. You know, the book is about,

the first part of the book, at least, is about the abuse that I suffered. And so having to sort of relive all of that for months and months as I wrote about it was tough. Yeah, I imagine so. Also, like, I want to be clear to like everyone listening and watching that this is not simply a catalog of your abuse. As we said, you're a psychologist and to be able to contextualize it, what happened to you as a mental health professional, just what was going on, and the ramifications was profound.

Thank you.

Yeah, that was the big idea I've ever had in my life.

And I got that idea.

You know, the book's a hybrid, basically.

It's a hybrid between a memoir that gives you a very visceral experience of my life and sort of a psychology text, that a self-help book sort of thing.

And I got that idea.

I used to be a high school teacher.

And I was teaching the book Knight by Elie Viselle.

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