The In-Between: A life in transition

Somewhere in between taking two master's degrees, I realised I wasn't just tired, I was adrift. I don't know exactly when I noticed this. Maybe it was during the second round of writing my dissertation in Bristol, sitting alone in a rented room I could barely afford. Or maybe it was the day I flew back to India back in 2024, after my convocation when my student visa had expired. My life was packed up in moving boxes, and I still no idea what I was actually qualified to do.

Knowing, but not helping

What I do know now is this: having a master's degree in neuropsychology and being in the pursuit of a second one in neuroscience, may sound impressive, but it doesn't quite tell the full story. It doesn't capture what it feels like to carry all this knowledge - about cognition, memory, emotion, trauma - and still not see a clear path on how to use it. My degree certificate doesn't express how heavy it feels to be stuck in a space where you know so much but still aren't allowed to help.

It's not that I'm not good enough. It's that I'm not qualified enough, at least on paper. And that gap - between knowing and being allowed to do - is where I now live. I sometimes call it 'the in-between'. No longer a student, but neither a practising clinician. I can discuss the neurological basis of emotional regulation, but I'm not allowed to guide someone through a panic attack. I can write about trauma, but I can't sit across from a person and help them unpack theirs.

This leaves me with a quiet ache. Not because I lack ambition. But because I'm not sure where to place all the knowledge I've worked so hard to gather. What's strange is that psychology knows this place. Liminality, they call it - a term from anthropology and psychotherapy. It's the state between identities, between roles. The moment after the old has ended, but the new hasn't begun.

Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, talks of this stage; 'identity vs role confusion' in adolescence, however, I think it returns in adulthood - especially in early careers, or after disruption, or migration, or heartbreak. Looking at my life right now, my question is, What is my role? Who am I, without a title to anchor me?

Active waiting

I don't want to sound like I'm living in despair. I'm not. I'm still studying. I still wake up with curiosity. I'm surrounded by incredible minds, and I know that this is a gift; to be here, to learn, to grow. But it's also a grief. Because so much of what I'm learning feels like I'm trapped. The learnings live in my brain, in my essays, in late-night journal pages. But not yet in the world.

This kind of waiting doesn't feel passive. It feels active, like you're constantly trying to prove something - to institutions, to your family, for your own sense of worth. You're always performing potential, hoping someone will call it "enough."

Sometimes I try to convince myself that this space I'm in - this hovering, this stretching of the "not yet" - is actually a phase of preparation. But preparation for what, exactly? That's the part no one tells you. It's like standing at the edge of a cliff with a parachute you've been trained to use, only no one can say when or if the jump will come. This space is quiet, but it's not peaceful. It hums with questions that have no obvious answers. Questions like: What am I becoming? Will this knowledge ever get to be more than an internal library? And then, the most insidious one: What if all this effort has been for nothing?

ACT and cognitive defusion

I recently have found some comfort in a concept from the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy framework: cognitive defusion. It's the idea that not every thought is a fact. It's useful for me to remember sometimes, that when my brain says, you're not doing enough, it might just be a well-rehearsed script, not a prophecy. 

The hardest part for me, is that there's no clear script for the in-between. No checklist. No shiny certificate to say "Congratulations! You've officially survived ambiguity." Instead, I have now started or rather I am trying my best to measure progress in much smaller units - in the days I don't compare my journey to someone else's, or in the nights I don't spiral into productivity shame just because I needed rest.

I've started seeing this time less as a waiting room and more like a kind of personal laboratory - a space where everything I've studied is quietly fermenting. Like, maybe I'm not applying theory in a clinic, but I am applying it when I catch a cognitive distortion in my own thinking. Or when I sit with a friend in distress and know, intuitively, that silence might be more helpful than solutions.

I would like to talk about a theory from narrative psychology that's stayed with me - the idea that identity isn't something fixed, but something storied. We're constantly editing, revising, changing the plot. And perhaps that's what this phase really is: not a pause, but a re-write. A drafting session of who I'm becoming. Some days, that's empowering. Other days, it feels like the world's worst group project where the structure is unclear, the timeline keeps changing, and no one replies to emails.

Still, there's something quietly radical about refusing to see this space as wasted. It demands a level of emotional endurance - to live in uncertainty, to keep learning without knowing when or how that learning will land.

A holding space

Somewhere in the back of my mind, maybe subconsciously, I feel solace from the idea of Donald Winnicott — the holding environment. A space where growth can happen not because we're forced to perform, but because we're allowed to exist. I've stopped waiting for institutions to create that for me. I try to build it into small moments - especially when reconnecting with peers who are also in limbo, remembering that "not ready" doesn't mean "not becoming."

But let me be completely honest here - most of the time, I have still no idea what I'm doing. Which is why with great effort I've stopped chasing "fixes" and started noticing what grounds me instead. I read a lot. Sometimes academic papers, sometimes random essays I find at 2 a.m. that make me feel less alone. One that stuck with me recently was Kristin Neff's work on self-compassion - particularly her idea that being kind to yourself isn't about lowering standards, it's about recognising your own humanity in the face of struggle. It felt oddly personal. Like she knew about the silent comparisons happening in my head every time I scrolledl through LinkedIn.

What brings comfort

I also find comfort in small, almost silly rituals. Rereading a line from a textbook that once excited me. Taking a long walk without turning it into a podcast-and-productivity session. Writing letters to my future self, sometimes hopeful, sometimes chaotic, always honest.

And conversations, they help too. Especially the ones where someone says, "Same." Not because misery loves company, but because company softens the edges of misery. But perhaps what helps most is remembering that the system didn't fail me, and I didn't fail the system. Recognising that structural gaps exist doesn't make me cynical. It makes me clearer. It gives me language to name what hurts without blaming myself for it.

All these things aren't solutions of course. They don't magically make a visa appear or get me a supervisor who understands what it means to come from elsewhere. But they do make the waiting less punishing. They make the work of holding myself together feel, at times, like a kind of resistance. I used to think becoming would feel like crossing a finish line - finally arriving at clarity, stability, competence. But now, I think becoming feels more like... composting. A bit messy. A bit slow. Often invisible. And yet, quietly transformative.

I don't know what comes next. Maybe I will get a job. Maybe I will be able to apply for an academic PhD even if DClinPsy feels like a mirage in the desert. Maybe something might come up which I haven't even imagined yet. I'm not in a rush to define it anymore. Because the more I try to control the timeline, the more I miss the strange richness of where I am now.

For me, psychological flexibility is holding on to the idea that growth isn't about sticking to a rigid script but learning how to pivot without breaking. I can be uncertain and committed. Lost and learning. In-between and enough.

So, if you're reading this while sitting in your own version of limbo — degrees in hand, doubts in heart, dreams in chaos, I hope you know you're not behind. You're not unworthy. You're just in process. You're not waiting to be something. You're already becoming someone. And that should be enough.