Spoon theory

The spoon theory came about years ago by a woman called Christine who suffers from Lupus.  She started this theory to explain to a friend how it is like to deal with chronic illnesses on a daily basis. Christine grabbed a handful of spoons and used the spoons to represent our energy. She had grabbed 12 spoons for someone who has chronic illnesses. Anyone without any illnesses have plenty of spoons like hundreds and thousands of spoons. 

For every task we do every day requires energy so each task uses a spoon. So Christine explained to her friend what she done on an average day and took a spoon away. When all the spoons are gone the only way of requiring more spoons is resting and waiting to regenerate more spoons. Due to this anyone with chronic illnesses will ration their spoons throughout the day. Most people do not have time to rest in the middle of the day so we have to ration them throughout the day instead of using them all up in the morning as no spoons means no energy. On the other hand if someone without a chronic illness were to go hard in the morning they might be a bit tired or they might be fine. In most cases they are able to continue with the rest of their day because they have plenty of spoons to get through the day. They might need some extra coffee but life is still able to carry on. Like Christine I am careful with my spoons and try not to waste them as I have limited spoons some more than others as I have issues with sleeping.

Well this is the spoon theory a concept developed my Christine Misbranding and referenced to by many people who suffer from chronic or invisible illnesses. Many people living with conditions such fibromyalgia, Crohn’s disease, anxiety and depression. 

Living with chronic illnesses can be deceiving as we can appear “fine” as we often do not display easily spotted physical symptoms. It can be tough for everyone involved with that person like friends, family and colleagues to understand why they bail out on happy hour or cannot drive long distances for visiting or take a lot of sick days. 

I suffer from backache, joint pains and abdominal pain. They are triggered by several things like stress, weather changes, not taking a proper rest or an illness flaring up like my fibromyalgia, Crohn’s disease or my IBS.

Many days I try to operate with minor pains in my back or joints and I have to take paracetamol or over the counter codeine and hope the pain goes away. Other days the pain is worse and the pain medication does not work so I have to hope lying down on the sofa or in bed works. 

As a full time mum and also working full time with no friends or family that lives on my doorstep to help out as it is just myself and Alisha now in the house it does disrupt life for both of us. The days I am in pain and need to go places we need to leave earlier as I cannot walk fast like I normally do. The housework gets threw on the back burner as I have no energy to do it myself. I might not be able to take Alisha places even if I make a promise to her that we are going somewhere like the cinema. The television ends up being our friend and that is where we stay unless I need to get up and make us food. There are days I will not be able to do much but lie on the sofa and rest. Because of this I must pace myself throughout the day. If I try to do too many things I run out of energy and I have to rest up. 

At home my work load piles up while I am sick. I get the basics done around the house. The laundry I hate with a passion so I literally get it washed and dried but it usually never gets folded unless I have visitors coming or ironed if I really need to get it ironed. 

I may not look sick but I do have varying levels of dishevelled at times because of a 3 year old, so it is nothing too out of ordinary there. To everyone, people who suffer with chronic and invisible illnesses can appear fine and it can be very hard to understand why we cancel plans or why they always complaining about being tired. The spoon theory which Christine put together to explain to her friend provides everyone a context to share with people in our lives so that they have a much clearer picture of what we have to deal with on a daily basis.