You can try another os in a live usb environment, without installing. It's important so you can be sure it's not something in the hardware. I once had some problem with noise, and it took me years to find the cause. I even bought a usb sound card to be able to use a mic. In the end, it was a problem in the power source generating interference (probably along with poor isolation).
In the software side, have you tried using alsamixer or a similar tool to 1- mute everything not related to the mic and the output 2 - lower the mic volume (high mic volume can generate noise)? It's also worth checking if you have conflicting sound servers or something like that. Have you installed anything related to sound, or are you using the defaults?
I believe we never had all the social progress we believed to have. Many people were just "restricting themselves" to conform with the rules, and now they feel comfortable enough to show what they really think about things...
What kind of mic is that? Do you connect it to a sound interface (like p2 plug), or does it have its own interface (like usb-c)? If the first case, have you tried connecting a different mic to the same interface, just to rule out any possible hardware problem? Have you tried the same machine, but with another os, just to check if it's specific a problem with mint?
Exactly. All that and much more. For a brief moment of my existence, I felt like a normal person in a world made for people like me. Then, it all slowly fade away and I became the weird person again...