It happens at work, in social relationships, in the family and also in the couple. Surely you have had a Procrustean close to you at some point that has hindered your projects, your promotion, your dreams or your proposals. The Procrustean Syndrome is characterized by turning off the brightness of others, by not letting someone stand out or stand out.
What is the Procrustean Syndrome
There are people who feel threatened by the talent, creativity or certain qualities of others. They cannot allow someone around them to stand out or stand out and they focus their energies on turning off their light. This attitude in the workplace usually turns into mobbing and in other areas of life it translates into harassment with more or less consequences.
Because when you come to detect that a person close to you is not only envious of you, but also does everything possible to put you in a bad light, can you get away from her? There will be occasions when you can do it and others when you cannot, but in any case, never let those toxic people with Procrustean Syndrome lower your self-esteem or make you stop shining.
The mythical origin of the Procrustean Syndrome
To understand all kinds of complexes, syndromes or specific behaviors, it is always convenient to go back to Greece to investigate the origin of that attitude. The Greek myths explain to us each and every one of the possibilities of human behavior and the Procrustean Syndrome was not going to be less.
According to Greek mythology, Procrustes was an Attic innkeeper who welcomed travelers with a good-natured smile. Once they were peacefully asleep, Procrustes bound and gagged them and cut off all parts of their bodies that protruded from the bed: feet, hands, or head. In the event that the traveler was shorter than the bed, what he did was break their bones until they fit perfectly. Luckily, one day the hero Theseus arrived to put an end to this man’s macabre activities.
Consequences of the Procrustean Syndrome
But today we have no Theseus to save us from the number of Procrusteans left in this world. And the consequences of being a victim of this type of person are important. In the best of cases, there is a loss of self-esteem and a lack of confidence in one’s own strengths and abilities. We say at best, because once you get away from the person with Procrustean Syndrome, you can dedicate yourself to regaining your self-esteem.
In the worst case, these people leave you without dreams, annihilate your personality and can even make you believe that you are worthless. If the Procrustean Syndrome occurs at work, demotivation on your part and bad arts on the part of this character can end in a dismissal after a long season of harassment. And in all cases there is always the risk of depression.
The Procrustean characters of your day to day: family, work and relationship
- But who are these people who can’t stand the success of others? They are people with a high level of frustration because they have not achieved their goals and they are not willing for other people to do so. But they can also be people with excessive self-esteem, self-centered and narcissistic who will not allow anyone to overshadow them in any area of life.
- This is how the Procrustean Syndrome is intuited from the earliest childhood when the class nerd is mocked by everyone else. He stands out and is scary, so it will be better to isolate him. Or in that family in which one is looking for a different life and someone insists that he is wrong, that he will fail and that, furthermore, he is going to prove it to him.
- Neither are relationships free from the Procrustean Syndrome. In these cases, the Procrustean seeks relationships with less brilliant, less attractive and less resourceful people, with the aim of not only being the most admired person in the relationship, but also achieving total dependence on the partner.
- And at work… well. That middle boss who hinders your proposals in such a way that they never reach who they are meant to reach, that colleague who steals your ideas, that supervisor who overloads you with useless work so that you cannot develop your true abilities. It sure sounds like you.
- Pay close attention to the people around you and do not confuse envy with this Procrustean Syndrome that can end your vital aspirations.