Why We All Want to Be the Hero (And Why It’s Exhausting)

I recently watched the newest Spider-Man movie, and as I sat there watching Peter Parker do everything he could to protect the people he loved, I realized how familiar that feeling is. Throughout the movie, he spends so much of his time trying to fight the things no one can truly fight. He tries to stop tragedy before it happens, prevent loss, and carry the responsibility of keeping everyone safe. It made me think about Batman, too. Different stories, different characters, but the same underlying theme: the belief that if they just try hard enough, sacrifice enough, or stay vigilant enough, they can prevent suffering.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how often I see this in therapy.

Many of my clients aren’t trying to save a city, but they are trying to save everyone around them. They carry the emotional weight of their families, constantly worry about the people they love, and feel responsible for fixing problems that were never theirs to solve. They believe that if they could just say the right thing, do one more thing, or sacrifice a little more of themselves, they could somehow protect the people they love from pain.

At first glance, this looks like compassion. It looks like someone who is generous, dependable, and deeply caring. But underneath that compassion is often something much heavier. It’s fear. Fear of letting someone down. Fear of making the wrong decision. Fear that if they stop carrying everyone else, something terrible will happen.

Psychologist Paul Salkovskis described a concept known as inflated responsibility, which refers to the belief that we are personally responsible for preventing harm, even when the outcome is beyond our control. Although this concept was originally studied in obsessive-compulsive disorder, we see similar patterns in anxiety, perfectionism, trauma, caregiver burnout, and people-pleasing. It’s that quiet voice that tells us, “If I don’t do something, this is my fault.” Over time, that belief becomes exhausting because we’re trying to control things that no human being was ever meant to control.

One of the hardest realities we face is that there are some things love simply cannot prevent. We cannot stop people from making painful choices. We cannot erase grief. We cannot prevent every disappointment, illness, or loss. As much as we wish we could, we cannot protect the people we love from every hardship they will encounter in life.

Accepting that truth isn’t giving up on the people we love. It isn’t becoming selfish or uncaring. It’s recognizing the difference between caring for someone and carrying responsibility for their entire life. Those are two very different things.

I often tell my clients that therapy isn’t about teaching people to care less. It’s about helping them care differently. Healthy love doesn’t require self-sacrifice every single time. Healthy relationships allow us to support others without abandoning ourselves. We can walk beside someone through their pain without believing it’s our job to eliminate it.

Maybe that’s the lesson real life teaches us that superhero movies often don’t. The goal isn’t to become strong enough to carry the weight of the world. The goal is to recognize that the world was never yours to carry in the first place.

If you’ve spent your life believing that your worth comes from fixing everyone else’s problems, setting that burden down may feel uncomfortable at first. But over time, it becomes incredibly freeing. You begin to realize that your value has never depended on how much you sacrifice. You don’t have to earn love by rescuing everyone around you.

The people in your life don’t need a superhero.

They need you. Healthy enough to rest, wise enough to ask for help, and compassionate enough to extend the same kindness to yourself that you so freely give to everyone else.

References

Salkovskis, P. M. (1999). Understanding and treating obsessive-compulsive disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 37(Suppl. 1), S29–S52.

Salkovskis, P. M., Shafran, R., Rachman, S., & Freeston, M. H. (1999). Multiple pathways to inflated responsibility beliefs in obsessional problems.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.) (terminology regarding cognitive models and responsibility beliefs).