messages app on my iph"o 16, getting extra things like elipsis, and microphone

[peter.1...@bigpond.com]

Any help would be wonderful please?!
On my iphone 16 I've noticed in messages, the app, it's behaving unusually, all of a sudden! So, the order of messages don't seem how they used to be, it's hard to find the most recent, and I'm not getting the "unread" prompt for those messages, although I may have a message, "3 unread messages" but can't get the unread message for each individual sender? I'm getting "microphone" message, not the edit field, also I'm getting the word elipsis with some messages, and people's names are just appearing as their initials? So if Jenni Facer has sent me a message it just has jf?
Any help, please?
Peter