Perpetual Martyr Syndrome: Symptoms, Causes, Cures

Everything you need to know about Perpetual Martyr Syndrome

Perpetual Martyr Syndrome is a common and chronic syndrome that causes prideful overworking, reflexive negativity and competitive suffering.

Perpetual Martyr Syndrome (“the other PMS”) affects men and women in developed countries where a culture of over-working leads to inflamed social pressure to exaggerate and vocalize one’s busyness and exhaustion. 

Sufferers exhibit compulsive work-seeking, task addiction and self-validating anecdotal-discharge. In acute cases individuals may excrete synthesized martyrdom, often contaminating the very relationships they presume to serve.

PMS is highly contagious among individuals working together. One Perpetual Martyr may quickly infect a population, transmitting the impulse to seek peer-validation that their to-do lists are sufficiently swollen to blend in with the colony.

Imposter syndrome may develop, whereby members of an infected population become paranoid they’ll be identified as “not suffering enough”. Over time, an infected community will develop a reflexive negativity, spontaneously exhibiting displays of exhausted self sacrifice, while repressing signs of restful joyousness.

In advanced stages, PMS Communities are defined by Competitive Suffering, regressing to a social currency of ongoing stoic struggles by which individual worth is measured.

Common Symptoms of Perpetual Martyr Syndrome include:

• Chronic overworking
• Task addiction
• Recursive Exhaustion (tired of being tired)
• Swollen checklists
• Relationship Equity Imbalance
• Joy clots
• Resting Poop-Face
• Negative social discharge
• Sever aversion to the smell of roses
• Competitive Suffering

Diagnosis

PMS frequently goes undetected because it triggers reflexive sympathetic responses that obfuscate diagnosis. 

Sara: “How ya doin’?”

Bob: “I’m good… Just really busy right now. Just a lot going on at work and I’m juggling a lot for (partner / kids / pet / mankind). I spent my weekend doing (stressful adult thing) and this week I’ve got the big (deadline / meeting / environmental disaster) but hey, I’m not one to complain. How are you?”

Sara: [Brief pause] Yeah, I hear ya. I’m just fuckin’ slammed right now too. Just a lot going on.

Note: Sara spent the weekend binging 5 seasons of “Top Chef.”

Note: Bob did, too.

Causes

The causal agents of PMS are subject to debate, but academic investigations have been suggestive of the growth mechanisms for PMS within close communities:

11 participants were recruited through a highly competitive interview process to join an “elite team” working on an “important project”. The subjects were told that every hour they must report to the group on their tasks completed as an ongoing performance evaluation. Then they were sent into the laboratory with no further instructions.

Each subject, believing they were being closely evaluated, spontaneously generated work to do, and by the first hour had crafted itemized lists of the work they had done, and impressive to-dos arising from their initial efforts. 

The longest lists set sudden precedent, signaling unspoken expectations. Another hour later each self-report was longer and more competitive. Weeks later, their task lists had naturally capped at what it was humanly possible to do, so the personal sacrifice related to each of their efforts became the standard currency of worth among the group.

When the experiment ended 6 months later, all subjects reported high satisfaction with their performance and results – until it was disclosed that the “important project” had no actual purpose; their work only a symptom of communal PMS.

Treatment

The best prescription for PMS is Nothing. Nothing is clinically proven to interrupt the Perpetual Martyr Cycle, allowing one to escape the impulse to seek out tasks in an unrecognized state of calm. Fight the impulse to seek out busy-work by doing Nothing instead.

Long-term PMS sufferers may develop a Nothing deficiency leading to joy intolerance. Such patients exhibit a fight-or-flight response to being, doing or contributing Nothing. In such cases, experts recommend daily doses of CTFO (chill the f#ck out), and a strict word-diet restricting reflexively negative utterances.

It is possible to stem or even reverse the spread of PMS in an infected community. When asked “how ya doin’?”, don’t default to anecdotes of hardship, instead say “I’m great. I did Nothing today, and it was wonderful. It’s okay to not be busy all the time.”

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Talk to your doctor about Perpetual Martyr Syndrome but just give her a minute because she had to do an extra shift over the weekend and drive all over town in this awful traffic lately but still got 5 hours of work in after the kids went to bed. But hey, it’s just a busy time of year, ya know?