“I can’t speak without cursing”

“As a child, I used foul language with delight,” says Alexandra, 30, a kinesitherapist. – My parents always cared about decency, but when they were not around … Adults were simply frightened if they accidentally heard expressions that least fit with my lace dresses. And I enjoyed my “power”. And my peers loved it! They listened with their mouths open and tried to remember.

However, after graduation, I stopped it. I decided that I wanted to express myself differently and earn popularity. The task was not easy, but creative, and in the end I solved it. Even in acute situations, I get by with censorship, although I know that if I wanted to, I would plug inveterate swearers into my belt.

Fifteen years have passed since then, and the notary Ekaterina still remembers this incident.

“I was doing an internship, and I had to get a reference from the head. He wrote: “Competent, but often intemperate in speech.” And you know what was the first thing that came to my mind when I read this? “Here, damn it!” Catherine has long been accustomed to watching her words, but it still happens that some kind of obscenity breaks from her tongue. As if these expressions were vital to her … Or maybe not to her alone. But why?

Why are we fighting?

I overcome my addiction

“Swearing is a way to quickly devalue what it is directed at or who it is addressed to,” says clinical psychologist Tatyana Voskresenskaya. Devalue, that is, make unimportant, symbolically deny existence – according to the psychologist, this makes sense only in relation to what is really significant to us. So much so that we often experience the fear of being dependent on such important persons or circumstances for us. And swearing helps to get rid of this fear, albeit for a short time.

“Dependence on the mother is one of the strongest,” adds Tatyana Voskresenskaya. – Attempts to get rid of it are captured in the dictionary of Russian curses, which are not in vain called obscene. And the one who constantly sprinkles his speech with swearing is afraid of life.

I rebel

“Unprintable expressions concern three areas,” notes the psychoanalyst Dominique Delmas, “these are physiological functions, sexuality and the divine, the very ones that our parents tabooed.”

By cursing, we rebel against our “Super-I”. And at the same time we enjoy the energy released at this moment, which we spend the rest of the time to keep ourselves within the prescribed limits. “20-30 years ago it would have been said that those of us who abuse swear words are protesting against a strict upbringing. But today his principles have softened, and here one can rather see a sign of an adolescent crisis, which is delayed due to the fact that we later become independent.

I claim my male status

Dirty expressions are more typical for men, experts emphasize. When a girl says them, she tries to assert her authority. Cursing makes speech “masculine”, turning it into a kind of “verbal phallus”. In an aggressive male society, a woman, according to Tatyana Voskresenskaya, is forced to choose: to remain defenseless against a verbal attack, to submit to the aggressor, or to “take the fight”, speaking in his language and partly betraying her feminine and maternal nature, using words that humiliate her.

“The uncertainty of a woman in her value makes her compete with men in their field, imitating sexual aggression,” the psychologist concludes.

What to do?

Hear (not) your inner voice

We may swear in response to some event. But curses can also appear more persistently in the mind. If you regularly exclaim something like “That’s a bitch!”, It’s worth listening: whose voice sounds inside when you say it? Abusive words, even when directed at others, can also symbolically express how we think we look in the eyes of someone close to us.

Carry out environmental protection

Cursing is a verbal-energy concentrate that in some situations really helps to get rid of fear, anger, indecision and even pain. It is only important that others (for example, our subordinates, whose self-esteem suffers) and ourselves (for example, after swearing at the boss) do not suffer. One of the options is to use substitute expressions instead of obscene expressions, such as “Massaraksh!”, Which was used by the characters of the Strugatsky novel “Inhabited Island”. There is full scope for creativity.

Realize your value

When we firmly know that we have something to be respected for, we need less to defend ourselves against external assessments, devaluing those who can give them. To see your positive qualities more clearly, imagine how a person who sincerely admires you would say about you. It can be both real and fictional characters of different gender, age, social status. Allow yourself to acknowledge your worth as well.