What's a Spoonie?

 

Christine Miserandino of butyoudontlooksick.com came up with Spoon Theory when trying to explain what living with lupus every day was like. Spoons represent energy. 

A spoonie is someone with a chronic illness that battles fatigue. Often these illnesses are invisible which means the person may not look ill on the outside, but may be battling invisible symptoms of fatigue, pain, inability to sleep, brain fog, and others. 

Non-spoonie people may not get enough sleep the night before because they worked late and may feel tired when they get up the next morning. Usually though, they aren't having to choose between getting a shower and eating breakfast because they don't have enough energy for both. 

Spoonies don't wake up with the same number of spoons each day either. Someone who wakes up with a flare is going to have much less energy than they have on a relatively good day. 

Imagine starting your day with 10 spoons of energy. You woke up several times during the night due to pain and when you get up for the day, you are actually more tired than you were when you went to bed. 

Moving your muscles for the first time in the morning brings tears to your eyes as you slowly make your way to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Now, you have 9 spoons left.

You are seeing your doctor today so you get a shower and get dressed. That's 2 spoons.

After taking a bus across town, seeing the doctor and getting several blood tests, and taking another bus back to your apartment, you are down to 2 spoons and it's just 2 PM. 

You can barely move because you couldn't get a seat on the bus and had to stand and then climb five flights of stairs to get home. You heat a bowl of leftover soup in the microwave, eat, take two naproxen sodium tablets, and lie down to take a nap. Even though you were out of spoons, the food, meds, and nap give you 2 more spoons. You call your husband and ask him to pick up some bread on the way home and make a bowl of tuna salad for sandwiches.

After dinner, you are so tired that you can barely speak in full sentences and you drop one of the plates on the way to the kitchen because your hands are shaking so much. 

With your very last spoonful of energy, you brush your teeth and go to bed. 

Spoon Theory has been great for helping me to visualize the energy I have so I can make better choices. It has also been a way to explain it to my husband who often offers to order takeout if he knows my activities during the day have probably exhausted my spoon supply. 

Are you a spoonie?