The Spoon Theory

For those living with chronic illness(es), we have a certain amount of energy each day. If you over do it the day before, it generally means you are a pile of energy-less mush and cannot do anything.

Enter the Spoon Theory.

many people with chronic illness describe their energy capacity for the day as having a certain number of spoons. Different activities require a different amount of spoons to complete. Some days, I might have enough spoons to go to a doctor's appointment, go to work and hang out with my husband and our roommates for a while. Other days, I barely have the spoons necessary to get out of bed and make myself some food.
Abled people can normally use up their spoons, take some time to relax and re-energize and then keep going. Disabled people who are spoon-deficient (yes, people with chronic illnesses are disabled, and no we really don't care) cannot just, take a break and get back at it. Once we use our spoons for the day, that's it. (and that is not an exaggeration). People like this generally refer to themselves as 'spoonies'.

Taken from Urban Dictionary:
"daily activities that healthy people tend not to think about take tolls on people with chronic illness. You start the day with a certain number of spoons, and play your day around not running out. Socializing might cost spoons, using the stairs might cost spoons, lifting things might cost spoons, etc."

Hopefully I haven't re-said the same thing three times now, but either way, I hope you understand.

Living with a Chronic Illness or any other kind of Disability is a full time job. The fact that I can work on top of that (not often, but still) is amazing and I am incredibly thankful.

Going from not even thinking about the energy I have to budgeting it carefully is a huge and difficult transition. I am not perfect at it, but I know as I come to understand my body more, I will get better at it.

For example, there are days where I have LOADS more spoons than normal. I feel good, and sort of gaslight myself with my self-talk "see you're fine! you were just being a baby the other day and aren't sick". I then do something big, like clean, reorganize and move my entire bedroom around. Then, I find myself flopped on my bed almost crying because I'm in pain, fatigued and spoon-less.
It's a fine line, and it becomes really difficult to follow.


The purpose for this post is 1) to help healthy people realize that there is a completely different world outside of your own. If you meet a "spoonie" whether they call themselves that or not, I hope you will be patient and understanding. 2) I will mention this again, so I figured I might as well make an entire post about it.




xx

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