Borrowed Vs. Shared Anxiety 😵💫
Sep 29, 2025
Ever notice how sometimes (read: often) you’re more nervous for your kid’s (or new for 2025: grandkids!) class change more than they are?
Or you’re sweating bullets before your daughter’s job interview while they’re calmly sipping coffee? Or—you’re pacing the kitchen while your relative waits for a medical test result, and somehow you are the one who can’t breathe?
That’s called borrowed anxiety. Our nervous systems don’t always have the best boundaries. They can’t stand the idea that someone we care about might crash, so they preemptively freak out—just in case. And here’s the twist: most of the time, the other person isn’t even as anxious. Your child will probably fine with the class change—you’re the one losing sleep.
Here’s the problem: clenching our fists doesn’t actually help them.
What does help? Usually, in these cases, putting up the appropriate boundaries and separating your anxiety from theirs is very therapeutic for both of you. You can then be for them in the supportive, calm way that they need you to be.
And then there’s the sibling to borrowed anxiety called: shared anxiety. This is when both people are rightfully anxious—yet, instead of soothing each other, they turn up the volume together. Think of two kids whispering before a test: “What if we fail?” “What if we both fail and have to repeat 3rd grade?” Two friends on a roller coaster, screaming so loud because the other one’s screaming so loud that they think they need to. A couple waiting for news, each reading the other’s face for clues, both spinning faster in the same hamster wheel.
Shared anxiety feels like connection (“See? I’m with you in this!”), but it also can be emotional quicksand. The more you both dig your heels in, the deeper you sink, and the harder it is to get out of that cycle.
So… What does help?? Ok, I’ll tell you ;-)
What helps is one person getting the strength and stepping out of the spiral—being the calm anchor 
️.
So here’s the bottom line. Know your place when you are feeling the anxiety of someone you love. Ask yourself - is this borrowed or is this shared?
- Borrowed anxiety is when you carry most of the worry that was never only yours.
- Shared anxiety is when you and someone else share anxieties, yet you wind each other up until the worry multiplies unnecessarily.
Either way, the treatment is the similar: someone needs to step out, steady the ship, and let calm be contagious.
Because anxiety may be catchy—but so is peace of mind. 
, SHIFI
