Why Main Character Syndrome is Toxic

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by: E.B. Johnson

Do you think of yourself as the lead character in a dramatic story that’s still yet to unfold? While this is certainly one way of elevating yourself in life and relationships, it’s not the best trick if you’re looking for authentic happiness and fulfillment in this life. Embracing a main character point of view can lead to narcissistic behavior, and forces you to put others (and your happiness) beneath you.

Main Character Syndrome is toxic.

In the last few years, the idea of Main Character Syndrome (or MCS) has evolved to describe a class of person who’s entirely in their own world. This is someone who lives every day as though they were the star of their own film. One minute they’re on top of the world, and the next they’re mired in drama. While it can tempt us to live our lives in this center-of-it-all way — it’s not conducive to long-lasting, happy, or productive relationships and outlooks.

Endless ego

We talk a lot about narcissism and narcissistic people, but it’s important to remember that we all have our own narcissistic tendencies that we have to manage and address. Living your life as though you’re the star of the show can lead to your narcissistic tendencies getting out of control. It allows you to feed the nastier sides of yourself and your personality. You start to focus on yourself so much that there’s no room to consider anyone or anything else.

Creating divisions

Main Character Syndrome is nothing if not toxic to our relationships. It’s impossible to stay authentically connected to someone when you constantly raise yourself up over them. Those who operate within MCS are those who only want to talk about themselves. They want all their problems solved, but rarely make space to help those who lift them up. Pretending your story is above anyone else’s create divisions that drive us apart.

Warped realities

Living in main character land is akin to living in La-La Land. You’re not living in reality when you pretend that you’re the center of everything important that exists in this world. When you insist on living in a fake world entirely of your making, you miss opportunities. That’s because you’re not living in a place where you can honestly see yourself, others, and the world for the place that it is.

Superiority complex

When you adopt a main character approach to life, you put yourself in a place of superiority — whether you admit that or not. You’re committing to making yourself the star of the show, and that (necessarily) puts everyone else in the world beneath you. This doesn’t help you build better relationships or even create new opportunities for growth, success, and connection in life.

How to check your Main Character Syndrome (before it checks you).

Have you been living your life like the main character of your own series? Whereas this landed you in term of relationships? Success? Or happiness? Sure, pretending to be a main character can give us a boost. But it’s not worth the cost of the long-term toll. Rather than seeking to be the center of it all, seek instead to be a part of it all. Elevate your emotions, build on empathy, and surround yourself with chosen people who make life worth living.

1. Enhance your awareness

It’s easy to keep yourself in a main character bubble when you have little to no emotional enlightenment. People in this state don’t think about their lives very much. They just react to the stimuli that’s around them. Sometimes, this can work out to their benefit, but the longer this behavior is perpetuated, the more internally focused the person can become. In order to experience the full breadth of growth that life has for us, we have to open up and become students of our own emotions.

The best way to break out of our Main Character Syndrome is to elevate our emotional state. Our emotions are what make us human. They are complex, fast-moving, and more nuanced than anything else we understand. Our emotions are what bring us to our knees, and they are also the motivating factor that can spur us on toward greatness.

The best way to break out of our Main Character Syndrome is to elevate our emotional state. Our emotions are what make us human. They are complex, fast-moving, and more nuanced than anything else we understand. Our emotions are what bring us to our knees, and they are also the motivating factor that can spur us on toward greatness.

Elevate your emotions by increasing your emotional awareness. Instead of reacting to a world that makes you feel this way or that way, stop and process each time you’re presented with a new idea, challenge, or conflict. Main characters are flawed in that they move through a world predicted for them. You don’t have that luxury. You live in a chaotic and variable world that’s going to make you feel a thousand different things. Dig into the depths of those emotions and understand how they unite you within the human experience.

2. Build up your empathy

Elevating our own emotional awareness is such an important first step, but it’s still only a first step. In order to break away from any narcissistic tendencies that we have, we have to then apply this awareness to others. That means looking outward into the world and understanding that every single person in it is a human being just like you. You bring yourself back into reality when you finally accept that most of us are doing the best we can with the gifts that we have.

With a better understanding of your emotions, you can begin to understand how those emotions work in others. This is the foundation of empathy and the starting point to becoming a better, more enlightened human being. Once we can use our empathy, we can move mountains in our relationships with others.

With a better understanding of your emotions, you can begin to understand how those emotions work in others. This is the foundation of empathy and the starting point to becoming a better, more enlightened human being. Once we can use our empathy, we can move mountains in our relationships with others.

Look at your own emotions and know that almost every single person around you is dealing with those same emotional experiences. We all feel sad, angry, happy, fearful. We all exist in different states of joy and suffering. Seeing your experiences as such a universal one will open up new doors that you never imagined. Instead of feeling the pressure to stand out above the crowd, you can relax knowing that you’re a welcome part of it. And so is everyone around you. Look at them. They’re dealing with the same frustrations you are.

3. Find your chosen family

Believe it or not, it’s a lot easier to fall into narcissistic behavior when you’re surrounded by people you neither like nor respect. That’s why these qualities are so important to have in the people we surround ourselves with. Rather than floating off into the abyss of ego, they keep us anchored to the real world. If we’re serious about avoiding Main Character Syndrome, then we need to create a chosen community of people we’re happy to be a part of.

It’s easier to bring ourselves down to earth when we’re surrounded by people we want to be with. Don’t look for people you feel you have to compete with. Or people who tear you down or force you to become something that you aren’t. Look for friends and loved ones that are aligned with you and true.

It’s easier to bring ourselves down to earth when we’re surrounded by people we want to be with. Don’t look for people you feel you have to compete with. Or people who tear you down or force you to become something that you aren’t. Look for friends and loved ones that are aligned with you and true.

Create a chosen community for yourself and those you love. Welcome people you respect, and people who return that respect to you. Find friends, lovers, and family that can lift you up without tearing themselves (or anyone else) down. Good friends challenge us, but they raise us up more than that. The challenges, the competition, all of that should come from a natural alignment of joy rather than a shallow need to prove arbitrary superiority.

Putting it all together…

Are you living your life like you’re the main character in your favorite sitcom? While this has been touted as some as a great way to get your self-esteem going, it’s also a toxic trap that can sling you right down into the mires of narcissism. If you’re really serious about being happy in this life (and your relationships) then you have to stop putting yourself apart from the crown and accept your place within the community that you love.

Elevate your emotions and increase your emotional awareness. This shifts your perspective and changes the way you see yourself and the world. Once you understand how your own feelings are holding you back in life and love, you can see and understand those same emotions in others. Use this self-knowledge to connect on a deeper level and create the chosen family you’ve been dreaming of. When we’re surrounded by people we respect, we don’t feel the need to lift ourselves above them. Find the middle ground and re-balance your ego. Look at the bigger picture. We can’t all be happy until we’re all happy. That doesn’t happen in a world of principal characters. Choose to be the part of the crowd that lifts it up into bigger and better things.

• Ekselius, L. (2018). Personality disorder: a disease in disguise. Upsala Journal Of Medical Sciences, 123(4), 194–204. doi: 10.1080/03009734.2018.1526235
• Reed, P. (2021). What Is “Main Character Syndrome”?. Retrieved 2 June 2021, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/digital-world-real-world/202106/what-is-main-character-syndrome

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