Have you heard of Third-Party Anxiety?

What is Third-Party Anxiety? It’s the anxiety that hits like a punch in the stomach every time the phone rings. Because deep down, you already know the news won’t be good. Not because they are bad people, but because they are still immersed in the same environment, surrounded by the same influences, breathing the same air that led them there in the first place.

People sometimes say, “You don’t have to follow them down that path.”

That’s true.

But even if you don’t follow, the anxiety doesn’t go away.

Because wrong still feels wrong.

And knowing that doesn’t disappear just because you stay silent or keep your distance.

One of the most painful realizations is understanding that you cannot enter someone else’s mind and change it for them. You can’t reason them out of something they didn’t reason themselves into. No amount of love, logic, or sacrifice can do that.

Like addiction, this is something that often requires rock bottom.

Until a person hits that point, until they realize they cannot fix it alone and need external help, nothing truly changes. And knowing this doesn’t bring peace, it brings grief. Because it means waiting. Watching. Loving from a distance while feeling powerless.

This is what I call third-party anxiety.

When anxiety is about you, you can take action. You can make choices. You can fight.

But when anxiety is about someone else, and you know exactly how to help them, yet they refuse that help, you are trapped in a different kind of suffering. One where your hands are tied, but your heart is fully involved.

And what makes it even harder is when they tell you they’re “happy.”

Happy… according to what definition?

Is happiness a deep, stable sense of peace and alignment with reality?
Or is it just another surge of dopamine that makes today feel better than yesterday?

Many people who transitioned once believed they had found happiness too. Until the illusion cracked. Until they realized they had been chasing relief, not truth. Pleasure, not peace. Dopamine, not fulfillment.

Temporary relief can feel like happiness when you’re desperate. But temporary relief fades. Reality doesn’t.

And the anxiety comes from knowing this… while being unable to make them see it.

That’s the part that breaks you.

Because love doesn’t shut off just because logic fails.

And hope doesn’t die quietly.

So if you feel this kind of anxiety, know this: you’re not weak, you’re not cruel, and you’re not alone. What you’re feeling is the cost of loving someone deeply while refusing to lie to yourself about what is true.

And sometimes, the hardest thing isn’t letting go.

It’s waiting… while knowing.