Many times we hear about the “Spoon Theory” being used to explain depression and other mental health issues for people who don’t have them or experience with chronic issues. I’d like to adapt that theory a bit.
The basics of the spoon theory are that you only have so many spoons in a day and each activity you need to do costs a certain number of spoons. You cannot break them, split them, or magically get extra spoons. If you don’t sleep well or skipped a meal or forgot a medicine you loose a spoon. Add into that the cost of most activities is pretty high. Going to a doctors appointment is 4 spoons while making a meal is 3 spoons. Imagine trying to do both in one day, plus taking medication is one spoon, getting out of bed is another, and so on. The idea is really for people with chronic issues that SUCK the energy and life out of you can really limit what you can get done. Multitasking can be a far fetched dream, and things get left unfinished as there is a greater need for something else to be done.
In my case, I’ve been dealing with the spoon theory for years. Mental health has always played a huge role in where my energy goes. Often during my worst bouts of depression I would barely be able to get up and eat a meal if at all. The only thing driving me forward was school. However, I have a hidden blessing. Being Bipolar has actually worked in my favor. Often I would spend days with no spoons to spend, getting nothing done, barely making it. Suddenly I would wake up one day and have ALL THE DAMN SPOONS. We are talking like 25 spoons, I can multi task, clean the fridge, cook 14 meals I won’t end up eating, and I swear I’m not tired. It’s like I’ve borrowed my spoons from somewhere. Then tomorrow comes. oh… that’s where those spoons came from. I’ll be exhausted for days but hey I got it done right? On a side note of mental health- I try to look at the positives of it, because despite the horrific and debilitating things it can cause, sometimes a positive spin helps, or I get a good laugh. A good friend of mine is very OCD, but we agree its actually good in a few ways. She’s especially good at helping people organize when they need help [ME ME ME] and always neat and tidy. She’s the best at helping plan parties because she’s so detail oriented, and she’s found a way to take her “disability” and make it something good and useful.
So back to the spoon theory. This theory applies to ANY chronic illness. And I mean any. Day to day life can be a struggle. We don’t always show it. A lot of times we save up our spoons for when we know we are going to see someone or go do something. What you don’t see is the hours it can take to get ready to even go somewhere or have someone over, the anxiety over whether or not it will be a good day or a bad day, and the recovery period afterwards. Many times I present as intelligent, alert, chatty, and somewhat vibrant (if you knew me before this you’d think I’m a different person today than I was almost exactly one year ago). What you may not see is the passing out, the blood pressure drops that can result in my fainting or falling, the concern on my parents face as they try to discern if it’s dangerous or not, the tremors, the hours it takes to try to go to sleep, the vomiting, the pain, all of it. I don’t say all of this to induce pity but instead to drive understanding. It’s important it someone you know or love is struggling to be supportive and understanding as best you can. It’s a huge burden to ask. I find myself all too often not asking for help when I need it or ignoring friends because I don’t want them to see me like this. It’s hard to have a relationship with someone who feels like half a person. Just like we did with mental health years ago, we shoved it to the forefront of everything. Understand depression and anxiety. Trying to get people to see it’s not a choice. Today we need to do that for NON visible chronic illness.
Remember the AIDS/HIV disaster of the 80s? Where people panicked because you couldn’t see who had it and made crazy assumptions about certain groups of people? Okay so lets take away the assumptions and all the horrible parts and focus on the YOU CAN’T ALWAYS SEE IF SOMEONE IS SICK part. Think about cancer [because this seems to be the only thing everyone can relate too]. Before the diagnosis and treatment, people often don’t “look” sick. They still have cancer. Even when diagnosed, they may not display what we “see” as being a cancer patient or being sick. Once they start treatments it becomes more obvious. All too often there are people who are forget because their conditions don’t fit into this “sick” mold we have created in our minds. We focus too much on the “look” and not the feel. And no, we don’t always want to be asked “how are you feeling” because we always have to say “i’m ok” or “fine” when we aren’t. It’s a forced social norm and honestly who wants to start a conversation with doom news of “not good today, I fell yesterday and now my body aches and I haven’t kept down anything solid in 2 days”. That will really set the mood. When we do comment on not feeling good, the conversation always redirects back to “why” and leads to this conversation and it’s “all about me”. You can see the spiral that begins with a completely kind and honest question. And no, we don’t want to hear “you look so much better today, you must be feeling good” because all too often it’s a mask or that last little push of energy we use to just try and seem ok. What we want is to ignore it for a few moments. I often find myself living vicariously through the stories of daily life my friends tell me. YES I want to hear about the student that spilled paint on the kid next to him. YES tell me about how your boyfriend burned pasta again. YES let’s talk about something funny. I don’t mind being asked about how I am feeling, it’s kind and polite. But just understand that when we say “I’m ok” that’s not always true.
So what’s the takeaway from this long rant? Well, honestly, just one thing. Understanding. Be understanding. It’s hard if you’ve never dealt with something like this to truly “get it” but you can still empathize and try to understand why what you don’t see plays a huge role in our daily lives. And that’s all we are asking for.
Life On Fire 