When I was maybe 13 years old my younger sister and I got paid to clear out trash from the home of a family friend who was a hoarder. This person had enough self-awareness to know it needed to be cleaned out, but didn’t have the spoons to do anything about it and so just gave us the keys and full reign while they spent a week traveling. We dealt with lots of old food, stacks of ancient newspapers and magazines, useless decades-old kitchen gadgets ordered from the Home Shopping Channel and never removed from the boxes, dead mice and their poop, that kind of thing.
In retrospect that was a huge health hazard to be irresponsibly throwing kids into, the job should have been done by a team of expensive trained adults with protective gear rather than two idiot children with some yellow kitchen gloves and lawn-sized trash bags, but we were happy enough for the pocket money at the time.
If you ever played a Zelda game, its how many “hearts” you have before you “faint”. It’s a metaphor about how much energy a person has, that can be usefully descriptive when discussing one’s experiences with managing a chronic illness
Wanna shower? That’ll cost ya a spoon. Maybe you’ve got eight of them, so how do you choose to use them? If you run out, you won’t be able to cook yourself dinner, and there’s no amount of “will power” that will help you
Use some medication to help you “push-through” because you’re hungry? That’ll cost ya a spoon on credit (when you wake up)
When it comes to disability — if you over-exert, it can cost you your entire next day while you rest and “restore hearts”. So you have to learn how to manage your energy more conscientiously than you would if you didn’t have “that disability”
The theory can help, not only to teach yourself how to manage your energy for everyday tasks, but also how to discuss the hurdles that your situation presents
In my own experience — it can be especially helpful in discussing how an “invisible illness” affects you… with family, friends, and sometimes acquaintances. And I find that to be kind, because it’s easily digestible for the person who hasn’t had those extremes of experiences
Regardless of my struggles, I’m very grateful for the amount of spoons I’ve been given
When I was maybe 13 years old my younger sister and I got paid to clear out trash from the home of a family friend who was a hoarder. This person had enough self-awareness to know it needed to be cleaned out, but didn’t have the spoons to do anything about it and so just gave us the keys and full reign while they spent a week traveling. We dealt with lots of old food, stacks of ancient newspapers and magazines, useless decades-old kitchen gadgets ordered from the Home Shopping Channel and never removed from the boxes, dead mice and their poop, that kind of thing.
In retrospect that was a huge health hazard to be irresponsibly throwing kids into, the job should have been done by a team of expensive trained adults with protective gear rather than two idiot children with some yellow kitchen gloves and lawn-sized trash bags, but we were happy enough for the pocket money at the time.
I see you dabble in disability. I always appreciated this metaphor for it’s usefulness and kindness
can you explain this to me ?
Spoon Theory is a metaphor for describing certain limiting effects of a disability to those unfamiliar. It comes from this original post by writer Christine Miserandino which explains the basic idea. Here’s its Wikipedia article.
Cheers
It’s called Spoon Theory
If you ever played a Zelda game, its how many “hearts” you have before you “faint”. It’s a metaphor about how much energy a person has, that can be usefully descriptive when discussing one’s experiences with managing a chronic illness
Wanna shower? That’ll cost ya a spoon. Maybe you’ve got eight of them, so how do you choose to use them? If you run out, you won’t be able to cook yourself dinner, and there’s no amount of “will power” that will help you
Use some medication to help you “push-through” because you’re hungry? That’ll cost ya a spoon on credit (when you wake up)
When it comes to disability — if you over-exert, it can cost you your entire next day while you rest and “restore hearts”. So you have to learn how to manage your energy more conscientiously than you would if you didn’t have “that disability”
The theory can help, not only to teach yourself how to manage your energy for everyday tasks, but also how to discuss the hurdles that your situation presents
In my own experience — it can be especially helpful in discussing how an “invisible illness” affects you… with family, friends, and sometimes acquaintances. And I find that to be kind, because it’s easily digestible for the person who hasn’t had those extremes of experiences
Regardless of my struggles, I’m very grateful for the amount of spoons I’ve been given