3 Books to Tackle Main Character Syndrome

Bijal A Shah
3 min readJan 11, 2022

Main Character Syndrome isn’t new and has always existed. However, it has recently been gaining significant prominence as a growing mental health concern, thanks to a TikTok trend where users have made self-deprecating videos, poking fun at themselves for feeling like a protagonist while partaking in completely mundane activities. The hashtag #maincharacter currently has 5.2 billion views on the video-sharing app.

Do you or anyone you know struggle with this? These books might be helpful in addressing the causes of ‘main character syndrome’ — a need for attention and admiration and an absence of self-esteem, resulting in an inability to live in the present moment.

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown
Malignant Self-love by Sam Vaknin
Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life by Beth Kempton

Hope you find these useful and feel free to comment below on any books that might be helpful :)

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Bijal A Shah
Bijal A Shah

Written by Bijal A Shah

Bibliotherapist, author, poet & founder of Book Therapy - therapy using the power of literature: https://www.booktherapy.io/ and www.bit.ly/bibliotherapycourse

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