THE POISON OF THE MESSIAH COMPLEX
According to Wikipedia, “a messiah complex is a state of mind in which an individual holds a belief that they are destined to become a savior. The term can also refer to a state of mind in which an individual beliefs they are responsible for saving or assisting others”.
The term was obviously coined from Jesus, the Jewish carpenter who Christians believe to be the “savior” of mankind by sacrificing himself to save people from their sins. The messiah complex isn’t a diagnosable mental disorder, but it seems to be related to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
One having delusions of grandeur is a clear symptom of schizophrenia and the belief that one is going to be a savior of a person, group of people or the whole world is a delusion of grandeur.
A clear example was Adolf Hitler who believed that he was going to be the savior of Germany. These delusions thereby lead to beliefs that what he was doing the right thing for his country even when he caused the death of six thousand Jews and many others. This tells us the danger of the savior complex.
A more common form of the savior complex is when individuals are drawn to helping people at the detriment of themselves and others.
While it’s good and even noble to help people, the savior complex becomes dangerous when you have a compulsion to help people at the detriment of yourself, your family, your friends and even the people you’re trying to help.
A problem with this is that when you feel you have to save a group of people or a person, you begin to feel superior to that group or person. And helping them becomes more about boosting your Ego than actually making an impact.
An example can be people who enter relationships in order to ‘fix’ their partner. A guy sees a girl still sad over her previous relationship and decides to help her get over him. Women see men going down the path of self destruction and are attracted to them because they’re broken.
A lot of romance novels are based on this plot, a bad guy who is only bad because he’s trying to cover up something that happened to him in his childhood starts dating a good girl who helps him become a better person. This then give girls the illusion that they can “fix” people, making them stay in toxic relationships, because either see it as their duty to save the person.
The Savior complex in a relationship is a recipe for disaster because you will definitely give far more than you receive, losing your own happiness while trying to source out your partner’s own. This not only applies in romantic relationships but also very much in friendships, it gets to an extent that your friends are basically using you and the worst part is that you know and you let them do it, this is an extremely toxic trait that will eat at you until it consumes you and there is nothing left, which is why before you save, love, or help someone else you must save, love and help yourself
Another perfect example can be the “white savior”, white people suddenly feel the urge to help people and come to Africa to do one help some people and take pictures with some black kids and then feel really good about themselves while impacting little to no change to the situation of the region.
I mean as an African nothing infuriates me more than a picture with white men or women coming to do some ‘good’ in Africa. They come and give some food and water to some orphanages in Ethiopia, take a picture with the kids and inflate their personal egos. The entire Idea that black people need white saviors is racist, and these people need to check themselves, are they helping because they want to genuinely make a change or because they feel compelled as the superior race to help the inferior race.
It was the same thing with the British people who colonized Nigeria and made it seem like we had no history before them, like we were just wild animals roaming about until they came. While in fact we had Empires, cultures, religions, trading with other people long before they arrived. The worst part being a lot of young Africans don’t even know their true history.
While helping others is really appreciated and even necessary in today’s selfish society, make sure you’re doing it to help the people and not boost your own ego, or because you’re feeling superior to them, and definitely not at the detriment of your own mental health.
