HeyJaredThe Messy Middle
Where parenting, mental health, education, and real life collide — written by an LCSW who tells the truth.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 16
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 21, 2026
Latest issues
The Broken Window (opens the original)
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Some of you, perhaps many of you, may have read a version of this story before. Someone I care about shared an adaptation with me after encountering it on Facebook. Today, for many reasons, it resonated with me, and I wanted to share it with you.<img alt="" class="s
When Therapy Becomes an Industry (opens the original)
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<img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="432" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ewXO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdfe971a0-3133-4296-b30e-ee86c6ffac24_1846x548.png"
Do You See What We See in You? (opens the original)
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“Help,” he said, “is giving part of yourself to somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly.”— Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through ItThere are enough essays, stories, parables and bits of family lore about what we learn from people younger than ourselves that the premise feels exhausted before I begin. We are apparently meant to be surprised when the child becomes the teacher, as though wisdom observes the hierarchy we impose on age. I know better and can still be startled by w
The Fear of Naming Harm (opens the original)
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We know a lot more psychology than we used to.I don’t mean psychologists. I mean everybody. People talk about trauma at dinner. Teenagers know their attachment styles. Parents talk about co-regulation at soccer games. We have nervous systems and boundaries and executive functioning and narcissists and gaslighting and dysregulation. There are TikToks about cognitive distortions. Somewhere, right now, somebody who has never taken a psychology class is explaining that their ex is avoidantly attache
Shame, Shame, Shame: I Peed On My Parents Oriental Rug. There, I Said It! (opens the original)
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When I was a little girl, I peed under the dining room table.I know. It’s gross. It is also funny. Sort of.The Messy Middle is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</di
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