The Messy Middle

Epistolary essays exploring recurring psychological questions that resist clean resolution.

About this series

This collection consists of epistolary-style psychological essays organized around composite reader questions that recur across human experience. Each entry uses a named prompt as a narrative frame for public psychological reflection, rather than a record of personal correspondence.

The writing in this series is developed as reflective psychological inquiry, not problem-solving or individualized guidance. The focus remains on the shared psychological contours of uncertainty, loss, change, and identity disruption as they are commonly lived, rather than on resolution or instruction.

These essays are presented as a completed body of public psychological writing. They are not advice columns, therapy substitutes, or responses to reader submissions.

RJ Starr RJ Starr

I Keep Trying to Stay Calm, but Everything Feels Too Loud

What looks like a flying mattress and a crowded kitchen might really be something else: the emotional weight of staying quiet when you’re overwhelmed. Cody’s dreams aren’t random—they’re the mind’s way of asking for boundaries, calm, and the safety to finally say what you need.

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