Polyphobia

Polyphobia is  a term that I coined to refer to prejudice levelled against plurals. A singlet who is merely ignorant about plurality due to lack of personal experience doesn't qualify as a polyphobic person -- that wouldn't be fair on them, would it? I am only talking about the people who are asses about it, and CONTINUE to be asses about it.

I've run into lots of different sorts of polyphobes, and I'll create a taxonomy of the sorts of polyphobia, BECAUSE I CAN. (Warning: mixture of decent and cod Latin approaching!) You cannot resist the awesomeness of cheesy devices! Perhaps it's not a full taxonomy, because they all belong to the same genus Polyphobia, but there are lots of SPECIES, right?

1. Polyphobe variant 1: Polyphobia veteris amici or ‘Old Friend’ Polyphobia

Ah, we’ve had quite a few experiences with this sort of polyphobia -- a lot of people, after they came out, assumed that they knew the person whose name was the same as the ‘singlet role’ the best -- or ONLY knew the ’singlet role person’ -- after we came out as plural, despite the original post saying that everybody had spoken to the people listed, as well as some people who were not listed. Most of these unlisted people were female. We were too nervous to mention that we even had women and girls in our group, since that would supposedly bring our Transgender Identity™ into question.

Everybody else, especially the poor female fronters like Kerry, Carmen and Darwin, got ignored, with the sole exception of Richard, because he made himself pretty clear from the get-go. It was as though people just didn't want to bother to get to know any of the other people behind the role, and it made us want to bash our heads in, because it felt as though we were being rejected by our old friends.

People came up with really awful excuses for why they were treating us this way -- someone once defended someone who was doing the ‘I only know the singlet role person’ thing by saying that trying to get to know other people in the group was like having one friend in a classroom and trying to get to know everybody else. That’s a terrible analogy; most people try to make more friends, and they will actively seek out people who share their interests. I’ve never seen anyone latch on to a single person in a classroom and not try to branch out. Certain non-plurals’ excuses for not getting to know people within a system are just plain amazing. 

There are also the sorts who just play favourites amongst the system members -- a lot of them made someone here their ‘favourite’ because he had the name of the singlet role, which made him the automatic ‘designated good one’. Richard got that too, because he strikes people as being so rational and calm. Fuck the rest of us, though -- I was pegged as someone who was just not a nice guy by a few people for no good reason, and everybody else? They may as well not exist.

 Not to mention, people who play favourites tend to appeal to the ‘favourite’ when somebody else is saying something they don’t particularly want to hear. Sorry; this isn’t the Good Cop Bad Cop system. Sometimes we may actually agree.

2. Polyphobia variant 2: Polyphobia subterfugiens, or Evasive Polyphobia

These people have a tendency of, um, evading all topics related to multiplicity. They may ostensibly accept a group’s plurality, but their actions belie their words. For example, when the ‘designated old friend’ (or a group of system members still writing under the ‘singlet name’ to be able to talk to an old friend) speaks to someone who is polyphobic about a system-member by name, they may clam up or wave away the subject, as though it is utterly taboo to mention plurality, even though they themselves said that it was all right initially.

To be fair, some people may take a while to get used to the idea, but after a point, the evasion looks suspicious. Sometimes it’s not avoiding the entire topic of multiplicity; sometimes it’s evading certain members of a system.

For example, a lot of people did not seem to be as interested in female members of this group, for some bizarre reason, even though they introduced themselves within a month of the original coming-out post. That didn’t even change after female members started becoming vocal in places where our old friends could see -- they kept clinging to the old ‘singlet friend’, who was really a composite. I honestly wonder if it was because of the trans thing, and how incongruous it must be to have women and girls in our group. Doesn’t matter; they’re here. and they ain’t happy, yaknowwhatimsayin’?

3. Polyphobia variant 3: Polyphobia negans, Denial Polyphobia

This sort of polyphobia is a bit like Polyphobia subterfugiens, but worse. Instead of just evading topics, people who fit this category of polyphobia flat out deny them. They’re the sorts of people who...say that plurality IS NOT POSSIBLE because their own minds can’t fathom it, or that we absolutely cannot be plural because we aren’t a DID stereotype. (They’re also the sorts of people who persist in using singular pronouns for plural groups.)

For those who seem to superficially recognise plurality, there is still a tacit form of denial -- we had to deal with someone who insisted on calling us the group’s chosen male singlet name for a while, and took offence when we and our friends told him to stop it, rather politely. This person also seemed to imply that we were role-playing, too -- he said that plurality was something that we were ‘doing’, and mentioned some of his RP buddies. No, we’re not all this person, and we most definitely aren’t fucking roleplay characters. (Who’d want to RP me, anyway? I’m not exactly the Shiny New Game Character of the Week. Or Richard? He’s almost sixty; he’s not a buttsex bishounen.)

This guy used his autism as an excuse for not getting it. That excuse never flies here; we’re sorry. We’ve met too many autistic people who do get it. Nul points !

3a. Polyphobia variant 3a: Polyphobia negans interretialis, Internet Polyphobia in Denial

I suppose this is a bit of a misleading subspecies name, but Polyphobia negans stupidfreeica just doesn’t work in Latin. This refers specifically to the sorts of ‘polyphobes’ that one sees hanging about snark communities and websites like LJ-stupid_free, Fandom Wank, Portal of Evil, Something Awful and 4chan.

These people have a tendency of snarking anyone who doesn’t conform to their norm, and natural plurals definitely fit that category. ‘You can’t be multiple; DID is a very rare disease!’ ‘You’re crazy!’ ‘It’s not healthy; multiplicity is a roadology pathology and needs to be CURRRRRREEED’ ‘LOLOL, I took a first-year psychology course and it says that multiples are all like Sybil!’ ‘If you’re not DID, you’re faking!’ ‘My friend’s cousin’s neighbour’s half-brother’s girlfriend’s aunt knows someone who’s multiple, and you’re not like them, so you’re faking!’

Honestly, these people are like the Daleks for social differences: one sight of them and their instinct is EXTERMINATE. (Apologies to any Daleks who may be reading this, obviously.)

4. Polyphobia variant 4: Polyphobia fugitiva, or Runaway Polyphobia

Unfortunately, we’ve had a few experiences with Polyphobia fugitiva as well -- there are too many people who seem to have dropped us, either immediately or gradually, after we came out as plural. It seems that so many of our singlet friends (mostly from a particular social group) were concerned about us during some traumatic experiences that we had before we came out to them.

A lot of them don’t seem to care about us any more now that we’ve come out -- it seems that any regard they had for our situation, or for us as people, vanished into THIN AIR. People seemed less interested, even when we wrote about the same things that we used to, or mentioned potential crises that were similar to the old ones. It feels like a slap in the face, because we thought that we could trust these people, especially since they stood by us during other traumatic periods. I suppose that caring is conditional -- we have to be a singlet to be bothered with.

5. Polyphobia variant 5: Polyphobia interrogans, or Polyphobes with Really Lame Questions

I don’t mean normal singlet questions; I mean really intrusive and ridiculous questions. I’ll take one person in particular, a guy who basically asked us about sex as soon as we got on the subject of our own plurality.

WE DO NOT EXIST FOR YOUR FUCKING PRURIENT INTERESTS. PLEASE DO NOT ASK ABOUT OUR SEXUAL ORIENTATIONS JUST THEN. TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE.

Would you ask that of a SINGLET? Of course you fucking wouldn’t, dude. He also asked us about our experience of taste: ‘How do you have different tastes in food with the one tongue?’ That was total neuroscientific phail; taste receptors send signals to the BRAIN! Members of plural groups experience different perceptions in the BRAIN, so it is perfectly NATURAL for us to have different tastes in food. His response to that: ‘You should give “yourself” to science.’ Singular pronoun notwithstanding, we are not a fucking science experiment. Jesus Christ.

6. Polyphobia variant 6: Polyphobia psychologorum, or Psychologists’ Polyphobia

How could I have a polyphobia rant without THESE people? These are the professional polyphobes; the rest of them are just amateurs. They’re the ones that either see plurality as ALWAYS BEING TRAUMA-SPLITS of superintelligent, super-creative survivor sorts, or a ‘clever delusion’ by superintelligent survivor sorts. (Notice a trend here?)

They also have lots of criteria that not all real plurals fit -- there must be a ‘host’, people must ‘lose time’, there must be actual ‘dissociation’ and everyone must be ‘splits’. Never do these people take the obvious route of...MORE THAN ONE CONSCIOUS ENTITY SHARING A BRAIN. (I’m using a ‘hard scientific definition here, because I’m talking about psychologists and psychiatrists...)

No, it has to be lots of complicated explanations that assume that there is a **superintelligent host with toaster powers** either inducing splitting or making the whole thing up. (the linked article is a good article, except for that little section on multiple personality ‘disorders’ -- it’s the same shit about OMG SUPRE INTELLEGENT HOAST WITH SPESHUL PLURAL MAKEING POWARZ...)

Das Ende.