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.
“I Keep Choosing People Who Hurt Me”
When we keep choosing people who hurt us, it’s not because we’re broken—it’s because we’re trying to resolve an old story. This reflection explores trauma bonding, repetition compulsion, and the long road back to self-worth.
“I Miss the Person I Was Before Everything Fell Apart”
Sometimes the deepest grief is not for what was lost, but for who we were before the loss. This is a reflection on identity, fatigue, survival, and the quiet ache of missing a former version of yourself.