Savior Complex?

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Does anyone here have some kind of savior complex?

Dating back to my early childhood I've had a compulsion to save the world.

I should preface this story by saying that I'm a white male who grew up in a predominately white area. Race has nothing to do with it. I'm not sure I even had a black classmate until high school.

From an early age, I was aware of injustice. One of my earliest memories is of being in daycare before I ever attended school (I was probably 4 years old). One of the kids did bad...something I don't recall what. The daycare adult didn't know which child was the guilty party (nor did I) so every child was made to sit in a corner staring at the wall in silence for a certain amount of time as punishment until the guilty party confessed, which I don't think they ever did.

In elementary school, during a student council election (which I only ran for because every student that had straight A's was on the ballot) someone was defacing other students' election posters with my name. I plead innocent and my teacher believed me until another student, whom they had know longer than me and trusted more, claimed they had personally seen me defacing a poster. (I had not defaced any posters, nor done anything that I think could be misconstrued as defacing. "Gaslighting" wasn't a term back then, at least not known to an elementary school child.) I never confessed, but simply accepted punishment as I had no way to prove my innocence. (I hadn't been taught to stand up for myself.) My punishment was to withdrawal from the race and personally cross my name off every ballot, but my teacher wouldn't tell my parents. Having gotten in trouble at school I assumed I would just get in more trouble with my parents.

Another time in elementary school, the safety patrol (the theoretically mature, responsible older kids) mistreated me. Every day before school started the early arrivals would sit on covered basketball court awaiting the start of the school day with the boys and girls in separate lines. One day the safety patrol, who oversaw this, made me sit in the girls line "to even the lines out." I wasn't effeminate, then or now, so it wasn't even "let's mock the gay kid." (Girls still had cooties at that age.) It was just some petty harassment.

I don't remember what grade it happened in, but it was definitely in elementary school and certainly no later than in the aftermath of being framed for election fraud. The first career that interested me as a kid was a construction worker.* The second thing I ever wanted to be was ruler of the world.

("So you want to be an engineer?" asked my parents. No, I want to be a construction worker. Engineers design things and do math; construction workers drive bulldozers. While I'm still interested in watching construction work, I'm thankful that ended up not being my autistic special interest.)

I suppose a fair number of kids, especially boys, might fantasize about being king. However, what they're fantasizing about is living in a palace where nobody can tell them what to do. I wanted to rule the world out of a genuine desire to make the world a better place. I had learned as a child that my moral compass was simply stronger than literally everyone I knew so putting me in charge was the only way to make the world fair and just. I wanted to rule the world so I could spent all my time personally seeing that justice was done.

I never had a desire to work within the system to achieve change. My father was in law enforcement, but I never had any desire to become a cop (and this was 30-35 years ago, before Rodney King, way before BLM, coming out of the high crime 1980s when cops were held in pretty high regard). Besides, my tormentors included the Safety Patrol, which were basically kid cops. I never wanted to be a lawyer or run for president.

I've had some grand ambitions in my life, and I think ruler of the world was the first. As with many other such ambitions, I was never good at figuring out how to get from here to there. Over the years, probably up through high school, I would occasionally talk about ruling the world, which I think most people blew off as just talk. ("When the revolution comes..." "If I were President...") I suppose in high school I just became so jaded and checked out that I simply stopped caring. The world wasn't worth saving.

As an adult, some of that childhood desire to save the world is still there. It's a sense of extreme personal responsibility: if I don't do something about this, who will?

There's some white knight syndrome within it. However, from reading about that online, it sounds like white knight types are often attracted to dysfunctional people that they think they can rehabilitate. For me, I'm drawn to the seemingly innocent and good-hearted. I want to protect them - keep them from being harmed by the users and abusers of the world, and from falling into decadence. It's clear that a big part of it is a desire to protect others in a way that I don't feel I was ever protected. I also feel very isolated by the fact that I don't drink and I've never even tried pot. It seems like nowadays all young people, even if they don't use marijuana anymore, they at least went through a phase in high school or college where they did.

I recognize my deficiencies in this. I try to provide guidance/wisdom, usually with seemingly little effect. I actively try to avoid dating anyone who I want to save, especially as I keep getting older and the typical age of such young women gets farther from mine.

Much of it is guilt-related. For example, I learned years after the fact that a grade school classmate went on to have a tumultuous personal life from high school onward, including a relationship with one of her teachers. When I learned of this I also learned they had a childhood crush on me in elementary school which I never knew of. Separately in our conversation they related an incident when they were nearly sexually assaulted in a middle school stairwell by a male classmate, but a teacher showed up just in time preventing physical harm, but misconstrued the situation so the boy went unpunished. Learning of this led me to later fantasize that I might have happened upon the situation before the teacher, saving the girl which would lead to her admitting her feelings for me. This would have adverted much of the turmoil that later befell her and would gave given me the high school sweetheart I always wanted. (By the time we had goten back in touch, she was not only in a relationship with someone else but had become a person I didn't want to date.)

I've hear people talk about "radical acceptance" but I feel the opposite way: radical responsibility. Right every wrong, correct every mistake, solve every problem. I'm smarter than most and have a steadier moral compass than almost anyone I've ever met (despite my lack of empathy). I often consider "not my problem" and "mind your own business" as tantamount to fighting words.

I don't know that it really classifies as grandiose delusions. I've never thought I had some kind of divine mission and I don't think I've ever received special instructions from God. I've never been a braggart or a narcissist. I don't think I'm above the rules; if anything, I want to go to extreme lengths to ensure everyone follows the rules.

I think it is definitely some kind of savior complex, but perhaps just a blend of autistic perfectionism, chronic guilt, and PTSD from childhood trauma.

Understand this concept, and saw it in my late husband ..... and he had helped so many people without any recognition of this , except two awards from when he was in the AirForce, that he never went to pick up or accept these awards. Did not find this out till long after his demise . He never ever bragged on his events but did tell of his interactions without any exaggeration . . . and shared in his ideal of this concepts written about by the OP.
I personally saw how he treated people he came across in distress . Any never did things for thanks or acceptance.
He pretty much saved my life at times when it was impossible for me to consider going on with mine.
He never considered hisself a Saviour or a hero .. but would of used him in the event that anyone ever!
needed a standin for one of those types of people .
Not a narcissitic bone in his body . The world would most likely benefit, from many more people like this :
be "PLEASE be CAREFUL OP ", it seems NT society does not approve of these types, regarding as proof of the cover up of evidence in his murder.Inspite of obvious facts, By local authorities in that specific area . Including knowledgeable judicial prosecuetor in that case. Best of my knowledge that prosecuetor ( Jaime Adams)and even the defense attorney still hold their jobs .Even after several requests to our US federal gov to investigate.

I love this post and found it fascinating. I have LOTS of empathy, and probably too much of it, to the point that I pick up other people's feelings like a sponge and it becomes debilitating. I'm in one of those funks right now, weighed down by other people but not myself.

I have the complex like you're describing. I don't want to be a leader or a Queen and I actively avoid politics, but I've always had a dramatic response to injustice against others. Until recently I didn't really notice it or care if it was against me because I was willing to fall on my sword for others, especially if they were strangers and I could stay emotionally detached as much as possible. By that, I mean underdogs. I'm very much into spotting and supporting anyone who might be disadvantaged in any way, and trying to help. I like to help anonymously because that's how charity is supposed to happen, by definition. I don't do this for any perceived fanfare or notoriety. In fact, I cringe if anyone even knows I exist, or if they think I'm doing what I do for any sort of appreciation or thanks.


Story 1 - Gender Issues

The earliest I remember was on my first day of Kindergarten, circa 1973. My teacher said we could play with the toys for "Activity Time" and I went to a blue train set and started pushing the train around the track. My teacher yelled STOP, bent down, and lifted me off the ground by my ponytail. My feet were literally off the ground and I thought my hair would pull out of my head. The whole class froze in place at her anger. Apparently my sin was that I'd touched a train, which was a boys' toy. I was supposed to know this gendered norm because the toy was blue. It didn't matter that my brother had the same train at home and that's why I was drawn to it. I was shamed for playing with a boys' toy and sent to the "Home Centre" which was supposed to be used by girls. The Home Centre was a wooden kitchen set where we were supposed to cook imaginary food, in accordance with our vaginas. I was mortified at being humiliated but even worse, I had no interest in playing with girls. I was afraid of girls because I'd only grown up with my brother and my male cousin. I didn't know how to "be a girl" and I felt very different from them. That was likely the NT-ND divide more than anything, but I didn't know that at the time. I just didn't feel like a normal girl, and I had no interest in cooking pretend food on a wooden play set, or pretending to be a wife. I slumped beside the fake fridge and froze. I think that's when my mutism really started to kick in.

I didn't tell my parents about this because I sensed the teacher was very wrong and they'd be angry with her. I thought they would make me quit Kindergarten to avoid her, and I'd never learn how to read. It didn't occur to me that I was still allowed an education and we could have got the teacher fired or moved me to another class. Anyway, that was my first big exposure to the world of injustice. Even though it happened to me, it had larger consequences because it was a gender-based assault and I started to notice how ridiculous the teacher had been to divide toys by gender, or force me to play with girls because of some stupid social construct. I was aware of how damaging gender norms could be, ever since that day. It's still a huge problem for me when I see boys and girls or even adults defined or categorised by their genitals. I'm sure you've seen my rants here, against everything from "Female Autism" to transphobia and homophobia. My former boyfriend is a transwoman and I support trans issues here, to the point I won't stop until people treat everyone with respect.


Story 2 - Race Issues

In second grade my teacher who happened to be Chinese (and I was IN LOVE with her, but that's another story), sat us all down to say we were getting a new student in our class. The new student was a girl named Bina and she was from Afghanistan. She was Muslim. I knew kids of all colours and backgrounds but this was the first time it was explained to me. My teacher got a big map and showed us where Afghanistan was, and explained how Bina might be feeling starting school in a totally new culture so far away from home. I was mesmerised by Bina and wanted desperately to be her friend or protector. If anyone messed with Bina, they had hell to pay from me. I kept my eye on her for years to make sure no one bullied her. Her family owned a little magazine shop in the local shopping mall so I saw her until I was about 20, whether she remembered me or not. That all morphed into me being a huge advocate for immigration as well as multiculturalism, and doing a lot of work to support refugees where I live. I donated money to BLM long before the George Floyd situation and widespread political appeal. I raised my kids to be fiercely anti-racism. My son actually became an advocate and scholar about Indigenous rights and reconciliation. My best friends were Hindu and Bahá'í.


Story 3 - Anti-Homophobia

I think it started when I was 15 and had a good friend named Kenny who was gay. He was the first openly-gay person I knew. He died from a ruptured appendix and I was totally shattered. I've carried the torch for him all these years. Then AIDS became a big thing in the late 80s and I got involved with AIDS fundraisers. Little did I know I'd marry a gay man who hadn't come out. Then I'd date two more gay men in longterm relationships. Then my daughter would come out. Again, don't even try to be homophobic around me. It won't be pretty.


Story 4 - Domestic Violence, SA, and IPV

The Montreal Massacre had occurred in 1989 when I was still a university student myself, and I attribute that as being my first exposure to Incel ideology, misogyny, or gender-based violence. I became active in the White Ribbon campaign which was originally an homage to the fourteen women slaughtered by Marc Lepine. Over the years White Ribbon has grown to include all gender-based violence and assault. I'm still involved in their initiatives. When I started teaching I became a champion for the rights of abused people and minorities regardless of their gender. I started a university club called SASS: Students Against Sexism and Stereotype. We did a lot of work to raise money and awareness for gender-based violence and sexual assault, and to raise money for psychology services for all victims of trauma. Today I'm involved with the Gabby Petito Foundation and a few other groups that raise awareness of partner abuse, or search for missing and exploited people. I've arranged and administered huge fundraisers by collecting money and used items for women's shelters. I used to sponsor foster children in Africa. I raised money to save the rainforest, even. There aren't many political topics I won't get behind, but anything related to sexual assault or gender-based violence has always been top of my list.


Story 5 - Poverty and Food Banks, etc.
I'm involved with fundraising through my church, for local families who need financial support and donations of household items, children's stuff, or food. I take part in some Christmas initiatives every year, anonymously, and I buy anonymous Christmas gifts for seniors in local care homes, as well as children in abusive homes.



https://www.gabbypetitofoundation.org/

https://www.whiteribbon.ca/

Thank you for sharing this info Isabella..glad your on this site ..

Love you.

So sorry about your tragic loss.

I know that I have a guilt complex due to trauma from childhood, and I think I may have a saviour complex as well. Either my guilt complex just looks a lot like a saviour complex, or I have both and they play off each other/synergize. Because of the nature of the trauma, the guilt is inextricably linked to the saviour aspects, so it's difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins.

Something that probably feeds into it was my father leaving us when I was very young. I was the eldest child, and I think that lacking a father figure might have made me feel a sense of responsibility to pick up the slack in some way. It probably didn't help that I ended up being a confidant to my mother, while still being a child. I think in some ways I had to grow up very fast and it's, somewhat paradoxically, left me stunted, because it was such a lopsided growing up. I've always felt this need to shield my siblings from what I experienced. It's not that I attempted to act as father to them but rather, I wanted to be present. They look up to me and I didn't want to be another older male figure in the family who abandoned them. I wanted to be a kind of fixture in the family that can be depended upon to, if nothing else, at least be there. But it's neurotic, both this family stuff and my saviour tendencies towards friends and strangers, so the ways I go about it are always to my detriment. In pretty much every case I'm putting my own needs last in favour of the needs of others. I can see that the consequences of that are only snowballing with time. I'm in dire need of a therapist, I'm sure.

I chose to move out for the first time a few years ago which, at least on the face of it, is antithetical to the whole 'be there' thing. It was only in part a bold move against my complexes. It was also something for myself, as I really wanted my own space and felt that I'd be able to better myself and my life from that stepping stone. Interestingly, it has instead marked the beginning of the most difficult few years in my life by far, to the point that I'm surprised I'm still alive. I am ever perplexed at just what the universe is trying to tell me with that.

For those who have a saviour complex: do you find it to be damaging to yourself? By 'it' I mean the acts of saving or helping people themselves.

For me it's always felt like it's wearing me down when I'm doing it a lot or too much. Lately even just a little bit has felt like too much and I've taken to isolating myself out of an instinct for self-preservation. I don't know if that's just due to my current situation or what but it's as if I just don't have the vitality for it now, or whatever it is that helping people requires. I used to be able to do it so much more.

I think in early childhood I actually had a villain complex. Ultimately, from a young age I had been told that I was inherently bad and worthless. I internalised these ideas to the point that they became indistinguishable from my own thoughts.

To make matters worse; when I was told to treat others how I wished to be treated, I interpreted that as treat others poorly. I wanted to be treated poorly because I thought that's what I deserved.

Unfortunately, I had this toxic mindset of 'I'm suffering so others should suffer as well'. This stemmed from a sense of resentment of the world and anger.

Writing helped. I used to write rather messed up stories with elements of body horror and psychosis. Not the type of stories you'd choose to read to children of the age I wrote them. This gave me an outlet to vent my emotions, feelings which otherwise I was unable to put into words.

Through my characters, I realised that I actually didn't deserve to suffer. I realised that the voice I thought of as my own was actually a combination of what other people had told me. Sentiments that were likely projections of their own self-loathing. I realised that my frustrations were misplaced, I didn't want others to suffer, what I actually wanted was to be heard and understood.

Guilt consumed me. I was aware that while I had an explanation for my actions, the explanation did not justify them. So I decided, instead of wallowing in my own pity, I'd work on taking better actions in my life from that point on.

This sort of fed into a saviour complex of sorts. One born out of the selfish desire to make amends for my past behaviour. I found it difficult to forgive myself. It was eating away at me. That feeling. Consider me an anti-hero I suppose.

I learnt the hard way that I couldn't save everyone or fix the world by myself. Yet I also learnt that was OK. That I wasn't alone.

Learning not to be cruel to myself is a lesson I seem to be stuck relearning. I remember a couple of years ago, I was insulting myself when a friend interjected 'Oi, weren't you the one who told me to believe in myself? Listen to your own advice'. I still think about that moment.

How did you internalize that concept?

I don't know how to answer this. I've always been inclined to expect human rights for human beings. imo this belief system is no different than The Golden Rule, a fundamental tenant worldwide and the philosophical root of common law.

It's hard to separate my philosophy from "me", in order to judge if it's done damage. That would be saying I was damaged by being myself. A rather difficult task. At the same time, I appreciate your question.

I try not to think of it as a "saviour" complex but rather a "common sense" belief. I'm not into "saving people" per se because that suggests I'm better than them, that they need me, or that I believe in equality because there's something in it for me or my ego. There's nothing in it for me when I refuse to be bigoted or discriminate against people, because those principles were innate. I can't gain anything or add to my belief that all people deserve respect, because that belief is already complete.

One partner used to gaslight me and say I was being a "martyr" to care about others and hope for the best for all people. I never did figure out what that meant, apart from believing in the goodness of all human beings until and unless they forfeit my respect by attacking another person's civil liberty.

When I started secondary school, I decided to start treating others better. I worked on becoming more aware of my emotions and not letting my anger get the best of me. At the time, I'd hoped that my former bully would also become a better person or at least work on it. However, unfortunately she still engaged in the same old behaviour. Our connection would best be described as a co-dependent toxic 'friendship' where we weren't really friends. Growing up, I always had to include her in events. She was manipulative and liked to use blackmail, but that's a long story. Always focused on her public image, she'd pretend to be nice in front of others but was an entirely different person in private. I wasn't entirely blameless though. There was a situation where she encouraged me to exclude another girl, making threats as to what would happen if I didn't comply. So, regrettably, I obeyed her wishes. Threw my friend under the bus so to speak to appease my bully. I did later make it up to said friend, then we naturally drifted apart over time, but that's another story.

I realised that someone has to want to change in order to do so. That she was just going to continue being the same and that I didn't have to stick around anymore. As I grew up, I wondered what took me so long.

One of my best friends at the time had it worse. I think it was easy to fall into the saviour role in that friendship. She was picked on for such ridiculous reasons. One guy, who had beef with my best friend, picked a fight with me because apparently he wanted a challenge and thought it would be too easy to fight my friend. He was a very short, skinny teenager. I simply picked him up and moved him out of the way. I always did my best to defend my friend, but unfortunately I wasn't always able to do so.

Now, I should warn you that this next story is of a disturbing violent nature. My best friend was attacked completely unprovoked. She walked past a guy who had a history of randomly attacking teenage girls for his own entertainment. This guy attended my school. He was suspended and taken to court, since the attack was quite serious. One day I was in the gym, he walked in and bragged to his friend about almost making my friend disabled. Laughing. He did it deliberately because he knew I was in earshot. Words cannot describe the anger. I understood he was provoking me, that he wanted to see me squirm but knew I wouldn't be so reckless as to confront him. Frankly I had to forcibly restrain myself from not flying into a rage. Going against him would've been beyond unwise. Apparently he was one incident away from being sent to Juvenile detention. I just wanted my friend to be OK and it was difficult to come to terms with such monsters in the world. That I couldn't fix this situation.

I was a bit of a hypocrite because I was always the first to defend my friends when I could and I let others confide in me, yet I kept all the bullying I was going through a secret. Always worried about being seen as a burden and I felt like I had to handle everything myself. Independent to a fault. That I had to be stronger than everyone else for some reason. Of course this was a completely unreasonable expectation to set for myself.

People were sometimes confused why I kept switching between timid and quiet to reckless and confrontational. My confidence constantly kept being built up, knocked over and then built up again.

I remember reading a book where a character I heavily related to got called out by another character for similar behaviour. That certainly took me by surprise. I had to put the book down for a moment. Definitely put some things into perspective.

On a micro level, I try to save people I find sympathetic or otherwise have a fondness for.

On the macro level, it's quite the opposite. I consider myself a misanthrope. I actively disbelieve that human beings or human nature are inherently good. I think humanity deserves annihilation. I see humanity as a problem that needs to be solved by extensively fixing. Saving the world means turning it into the world as I think it should be: rational, intelligent, responsible, honest, fair.

I don't care about civil liberties. I care about a world of right thought, right speech, right action. If you would choose wrong you don't deserve the freedom to make a choice. A world where if you could and you should you always will.

I'm quite enamored with martyrdom. Nothing so justifies one's existence like the willingness to sacrifice that existence for a greater cause. There seems no better time to die than in the moment of greatest triumph.