Hi, my name is Stephanie and today I wantto talk to you about what spoon theory is.
Thank you so much to my patrons forvoting on today's video topic.
I've been hearing in the autism and disabilitycommunities things like, if you have enough spoons, can you.
.
.
or I don't have enough spoons for this.
And throughout seeing it beingused, I've surmised that it has something todo with, like, energy or, like, the ability to, like, put up with stuff or somethinglike that.
But I [had] not really looked officially into what spoon theory is andI thought I would do that today with you guys.
I also came across people who wouldcall themselves spoonies, but it does appear that this is specifically forthose who have, like, autoimmune diseases and illnesses and stuff like that, rather than just in general disability.
But that's just what I'm gathering fromthat.
So, spoon theory appears to have originated with someone named Christine Miserandino.
Hopefully I'm saying that right.
I'm not really good at names.
But it was basically from a story, that they told it to their friend, trying tohelp them understand what it's like to live with lupus without just saying, like, this is the list of, you know, symptoms or problems that I go through.
I would liketo encourage you to read her story directly and that will be linked in thedescription box below.
Essentially, the idea is that healthy people or maybeallistic or whatever you want to call it people kind of live life with anunlimited amount of spoons, or maybe they live life as though they have anunlimited amount of spoons.
They seem to have a lot, at the very least.
Of course, that sounds really weird, but Miserandino was saying that, basically, a spoonwould be kind of like a representation of a piece of yourself throughout theday.
People will start out with only kind of a small set of spoons per day and youhave to decide and make very specific decisions on what you can and can't dotoday and make it to the end of the day, hopefully, with at least a sponor a piece of yourself left so that you're not, maybe, going into a burnout orbeing so overly exhausted that it becomes detrimental to you in other ways.
She explains that, sure, you could try to borrow against tomorrow's spoons, but thatwould mean, of course, that tomorrow you'd have even less than you had to work withtoday, and that could lead to even more problems.
Being mindful of, like, all thelittle things to do with their day, from the effort it takes to take a shower andget up out of bed and, you know, either drive or find a ride or whatever.
Allthose little things takes a special effort for people with chronic illnessesand also for some with disabilities.
This kind of phenomenon, I think, for autisticpeople who don't also have, like, a comorbid chronic illness, can be mostlyattributed to executive dysfunctioning, where having issues with yourexecutive function and makes it so much more than, say, just a shower.
That conceptof all of this energy, all of this pieces, all of these pieces of me are beingrequired for a task that someone else can just casually do as part of theirday, that kind of concept, that kind of plays into this spoon theory in thatsense.
I think that it has been extrapolated somewhat to be able to beused for the disability and autistic communities, not just specifically forthose with lupus or chronic illness or invisible illnesses, etc.
It's kind oflike the mental, physical, emotional capabilities of a person for that daycompared against the amount of capacity.
We have a certain amount of capacity forthose things and understanding how much each task or each thing costs of ourcapacity.
I don't know if that makes sense.
Hopefully it does.
Maybe someonewho's perfectly healthy and isn't really suffering from any illnesses or anythingor disorders, you know, a shower, that's not a big deal.
Maybe their morningroutine would be a spoon.
They have to go through, you know, getting up, taking a shower, getting their clothes on, getting their breakfast together, andgetting out the door.
That might take a piece, whereas for someone else, thatcapacity is going to cost them a lot more than, you know, the person who thatjust cost a spoon or one thing for, if that makes sense.
The reason this can be really important for those with, like, invisibledisabilities and illnesses is because it's hard for people to understand whenyou might not have physically done much or there isn't much to look at to say, oh, I've achieved a lot, because for you, it took a lot.
For them, the amount that youdid didn't take much for them, and understanding that people who havedisabilities, people who have illnesses, are dealing with a whole different setof things than someone who doesn't.
So, trying to kind of explain how youhave to be mindful of those sorts of things or you're going to run intoburnout or you're going to just not be able to function.
Obviously, burningyourself out to .
.
.
no longer being able to function everyday is going to have adetrimental effect on your health in a variety of ways.
Another aspect of Miserandino's story for the origin of spoon theory is that there was amentioned time set aside to feel bad about how long it took you to do thosesimple things that should have been able to be done in a few minutes.
And I thinkthat's something that is important for us to maybe be aware of or have thisconversation about, because you're, you shouldn't have to feel guilty.
Like, .
.
.
you're wasting your time and energy on feeling guilty about things just becausesomeone else can do it easier or someone else can do it faster or someone elsecan do it better.
That's- who cares? They're a differentperson than you are, and it's hard to say that because not only do we often holdourselves to the standard of someone else, but other people do as well.
Andthat's one of the things that was so important to me when I found out aboutautism, because I was constantly not understanding how I was such a trashhuman being because I couldn't reach the same standard of what I thought I shouldbe able to reach, what other people I should be able to reach, because itjust didn't make sense.
Because I was perfectly fine, right? Like, I shouldn'thave these problems.
All of these things shouldn't be exhausting for me.
Itshouldn't be difficult for me to do this.
But it was, and I think being able tohave this conversation and understand that, yes, some people struggle more withthings that seem simple to others and that's okay, because they're a differenthuman being.
It's important because at least then we can eliminate, hopefully, atleast a little bit of the waste of time spent feeling guilty or bad becausewe're not someone else or because we have a disability or because we're illin some way or have a disorder or whatever else it might be.
Now, inreference to, like, online, maybe even requests, spoons tends to be morespecifically about like emotional and mental capacity.
So, like, can you handleengaging with people about something? Can you handle doing this task that mightmight add to your list of things? Can you handle trying to be understanding topeople who are being belligerent? Those sorts of things tends to be what theyrefer to as spoons in, like, the online community, even though spoons obviouslyis originated as a way to explain kind of, like, the whole experience.
And onanother note, I just wanted to say again that it does appear that spooniespecifically applies to those with chronic illnesses , not just people whocan also identify with the concept of spoon theory.
So, like, for me, I do nothave a chronic illness.
I don't have that as a comorbidity, which I'm thankfulfor, and so I really wouldn't refer to myself as a spoonie because that's notreally for me.
But there are some people who are autistic and also have chronicillnesses who might refer to themselves as such.
I hope this video helped explaina little bit about what spoon theory is, where it originated and how it's kind ofused to explain the disabled or chronic illness kind of experience for peoplewho might not experience those things.
I highly encourage you, again, to readthe original story.
Obviously, that would be the most helpful and more completelyunderstanding the concept and everything like that.
So, at the very least, I hopethis video at least introduced you to the idea and also where it came from andhow to find out more.
Anyway, thank you for watching today's video.
If youenjoyed it, go ahead and drop a like and let me know your thoughts in thecomments below.
If you enjoy autism- related content from me, feel free tohit that subscribe button.
I do upload content every Thursday at4:00 p.
m.
Central Standard Time.
Hope that you're having a wonderful week andI'll see you in my next video.
Bye!.
