why do you always censor swear words (excluding writing)
My reason for doing this is probably a bit unusual, or at least when I looked it up a while back I couldn't find anyone else who had this problem. But basically, whenever I say or type any kind of swear word (even mild ones), I get this intense spike of anxiety and fear like something terrible is going to happen to me. It's awful, I start shaking and my heart races and I feel sick. This happens even if I say one by accident, or if I say one when I'm completely alone and no one can hear me.
Weirdly, I swear in my thoughts all the time without any issue. Constantly even! And hearing or reading them is hilarious too, it doesn't bother me at all, and I can even mouth them fine as long as it's silent. It's the actual physical act of me personally saying or typing them that triggers that fear response, even if I want to swear (and sometimes I really do want to swear). I think it might be some kind of phobia, although I looked it up and couldn't find anyone else who had something similar. I feel like I've always had this fear - I can't pin it down to any one inciting event, haha.
When I'm writing fic, I get around it by typing the word backwards - I start with k, then add a c, then add a u, and so on. And in rough drafts I use abbreviations to keep up a flow - k, bs, t, king, ard, tch, ss. That kind of thing. Back in the day, one of my betas had to add in the swear words for me... that was how I met one of my betas actually, she wrote to me saying "I love your fic but you HAVE to stop censoring the swear words, it looks and reads terribly" and offered to help me with them. I could probably try the same backwards thing with comics/art but for some reason it's different when it's fic vs art, I don't know how to explain it.
Lately I've been trying to work on at least being able to type damn or hell (hesitated on both of these) without freaking out, since that opens up a lot of phrases and such that I want to use normally, haha. I've also tried to say them a bit in real life but it's still hard, it's like I have to really force myself physically to say it, and there's still the anxious buzz for a while afterwards. But I figure that with enough practice I can at least be able to work those two into my vocabulary. I’ve had this phobia(?) all my life though, so it’s very hard to ignore the “you can’t do that” voice whenever I start trying to say or type certain words... you can actually hear me struggle audibly with this during my Star Control Origins supercut back in 2018 when I accidentally bought two guns for my lander. In the end I couldn’t do it.
