Savior complex anyone?

Source: http://www.peopleskillsdecoded.com/savior-complex/

Here’s a fairytale gone badly, as it sometimes happens in real life: There was once a little girl who believed that all good things will come to her if she is really nice and always helps other people.

She was always there for her aging parents; she even refused a dream job because it was in another town and she didn’t want to move too far from her parents. She would always help her friends, lend them money, give them advice and get them out of trouble.

Her colleagues at work could always rely on her and she would often get behind on her projects to give them a hand with theirs. She also had this affinity towards guys with serious problems (jobless, alcohol abusing, emotionally imbalanced), the kind of guys that desperately needed help.

After about ten years of doing this, she felt miserably. She wasn’t getting the love, appreciation and recognition she wanted, most people had started taking all her help for granted, her life did not look the way she’d hoped it would.

When I discussed with her in our first communication coaching session, focused on identifying the key social skills to improve, after about 15 minutes of conversation, bells started ringing in my head going: “Savior complex full throttle!”

What Is The Savior Complex? 

The savior complex is a psychological construct which makes a person feel the need to save other people. This person has a strong tendency to seek people who desperately need help and to assist them, often sacrificing their own needs for these people.

There are many sides to a savior complex and it has many roots. One of its fundamental roots, in my experience, consists in a limiting belief the savior person has that goes something like this:

“If I always help people in need, I will get their love and approval, and have a happy life.”

This is of course, a nice sounding fairytale.

Houston We Have a Problem

Often, in real life, a savior will have such an unassertive way of helping others that instead of becoming grateful, they get used to it and they expect it. They feel entitled to receive help from this person, simply because they need it and they’ve always got it.

On top of this, always putting other people’s needs first makes a savior not take care of their own needs. So while they may feel happy because they are helping others, at some level, they feel bitter and frustrated at the same time.

Reframing Nobility

Here’s where things get worse: many people with a savior complex I’ve met, although they realize at some point that they have a savior complex and it is not worth it for them, they will not try to combat it.

They’re not masochistic; they have another belief that even if being a savior will not get them the recognition they want and will not make them happy, it is the noble thing to do. They believe they are somehow better then others because they help people all the time without getting anything back.

Do you have any idea how dim-witted this is? There is nothing noble in sacrificing yourself for others while you are starving at a psychological level. If our ancestors would have willingly done so 50.000 years ago, our species would be extinct.

If you think you have a savior complex or at least something close to it, I believe the best thing you can do is to face up to the practical consequences in has in your life. Being a savior is neither noble nor practical.

So who's your hero?

I know someone who is very "stingy" on the knowledge that she passes on to her mentees. I noticed it because when an issue arose, it is only her who can solve it. You might say that maybe she is just more resourceful or because she is a better critical or logical thinker. But no, these are hard facts that she should have passed on to her mentee. When I asked a colleague of her if other people notice that too, she said "yes, and we believe she does that because she fears for the time to come that she is dispensable". Sometimes I wonder if she has the so called "Messiah complex" or "hero complex" wherein she feels that she can or should "save" other people. And if that power is lost, she has nothing.

 This is similar to the knight in shining armor attitude of some men. There are quite a number of films made based on this theme, wherein a man saves or rescues a woman from "despair". Most children's fairytales are like that,  only a man can save the girl from her long sleep, cruel stepmother or from the tower. The movie "Pretty Woman" is also an example although that was not the man's plan at first, but that's what made the story charming right?

There is female counterpart to that knight shining armor, women who like "bad boys", because whether  they admit it or not, they believe they can change that man and eventually wear that badge of honor as "the woman who changed him". Fifty shades of grey?

Another version I know is someone who gives "false" power. I am sure psychologists have a special term for these kind of people of which I am yet to find out. They lead you on, making you feel that you can make your own decisions and "supports" you on whatever you decide on but they wait for that opportune moment to come in and show everyone that they know better that everything you were actually doing along the way is wrong (or not wrong but here's a better way, as what they would usually say). And they do this so nonchalantly that you have no way to prove that was their plan all along. Thus, if you try to share your observations to others you end up looking as the jealous one, or paranoid or worst, simply incompetent.

For this last kind of people, I believe there's a special place in hell for them since they have already enjoyed all the praises and glory here on earth.