Living in Limbo After ‘No New Findings’: The Emotional Toll of Uncertainty(Counselling in Athlone & Online Across Ireland)

When “good news” doesn’t feel good

When you’ve waited weeks for results, you might hope that this appointment will finally bring answers — something that explains what’s been happening in your body. Then the call or letter arrives: “No new findings.”

People around you might respond with, “That’s great news!” or “You must be so relieved.” But if you’re still living with symptoms that are life-changing, painful, or misunderstood, those words can sting. It’s hard to feel relief when nothing has changed — when you’re still exhausted, still in pain, and still without a name for what’s happening.

That space between questions and answers is what many describe as limbo — and it can be every bit as distressing as illness itself.

Living with uncertainty that never fully ends

When tests show nothing new, you’re left in uncertainty.

• You lose the story that could make sense of what’s happening. There’s no diagnosis to guide treatment or explain the pain.

• You may feel unseen. It can sound like good news to others — “At least it’s nothing serious” — but it might not feel good when your symptoms continue.

• Your nervous system stays on alert. Each new test cycle stirs anxiety, waiting, scanning for answers.

For many, the repetition of waiting and hearing “nothing new” becomes its own kind of trauma — the body and mind bracing each time, hoping this appointment might finally be different. The system can unintentionally teach people that relief isn’t safe to feel, because it’s always followed by more waiting, more tests, and more uncertainty.

The impact is cumulative. Each inconclusive result doesn’t reset the anxiety — it adds to it.

The quiet grief that few recognise

There’s a form of grief that comes from not knowing. You might grieve the life you had before all the waiting began — or the plans you’ve postponed because of symptoms that never settle. You might grieve missed opportunities, lost confidence, or the version of yourself who once trusted your own body.

This grief can be complicated because it isn’t always visible. There’s no clear moment that others recognise as loss, and yet something vital is missing: the sense of safety that comes with knowing what’s happening to you.

You might even grieve the loss of trust — in your body, in the system, or in the idea that persistence will eventually lead to answers.

These feelings are not signs of weakness; they are natural, human responses to prolonged uncertainty.

The messages that make it harder

Sometimes the hardest part is what others say:

“At least it’s nothing serious.” “You should be relieved.” “Maybe it’s just stress.”

Even if meant kindly, these words can land like dismissal. They miss the reality that “nothing found” doesn’t mean nothing wrong. When someone has lived for months or years with symptoms that are real and debilitating, these reassurances can feel invalidating — as though the person’s suffering has been minimised or erased.

It can be deeply isolating to carry an experience that doesn’t fit neatly into the categories others understand.

The emotional cost of being “the one who waits”

For some, this waiting begins to take shape in the nervous system itself — tension that never releases, exhaustion that never quite lifts. Days revolve around results, appointments, or chasing follow-ups. Even rest feels temporary because the body and mind remain braced for the next call, scan, or letter.

Clients often describe this as feeling “suspended” — unable to move forward, but unable to stop searching either. It’s a kind of survival mode that rarely gets named, because the world keeps telling them to be grateful that “nothing was found.”

The cost isn’t only emotional. Limbo seeps into work, relationships, sleep, and concentration. It shapes how safe the world feels and how much control a person believes they have left.

When uncertainty enters the therapy room

For therapists, supporting someone in this kind of uncertainty can be profoundly humbling. There is often no clarity to offer — no resolution to reach. The therapeutic task becomes holding space where answers are absent, validating an experience that has been repeatedly dismissed elsewhere.

In therapy, language like “no new findings” can carry enormous emotional weight. It can evoke shame, anger, fear, or grief all at once. Our work is not to translate that into reassurance, but to witness the cost of living in that space — to give form to what has been unseen.

Clients in limbo often don’t need optimism; they need recognition. They need to know that what they’re feeling makes sense, even if what’s happening to them still doesn’t.

When it might help to talk

If the waiting starts to shape your days — sleep, appetite, relationships, confidence — it may help to talk to someone who understands this space between clarity and confusion.

Counselling offers a place where the fear, frustration, and exhaustion of uncertainty can be acknowledged and held. It doesn’t erase the waiting, but it can make the experience less isolating — a space where you don’t have to minimise what’s happening to make others comfortable.

You don’t need a diagnosis to deserve support.

Closing reflection

Limbo isn’t passive waiting. It’s active, exhausting, and deeply human. You are doing your best in a system that doesn’t always see the effort it takes just to keep going.

If you’d like a space to breathe and be understood, I offer counselling face-to-face in Athlone and online across Ireland — a place where your uncertainty can be met with compassion rather than minimisation.