To feel a bit weird about the casual use of spoon theory

You'd be stuck at the gym for a good long while if you'd run out of spoons using the original analogy 😂

I thought it has roots in 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', TS Eliot.

I get what you mean. Obviously the conversation has opened up more over recent years about chronic illness etc but for a long time referring to spoons was really just the domain of someone with an energy limiting illness and there wa little else, I never loved it to be honest but for some reason it does feel a bit jarring to hear it when fit and well people refer to themselves eg as being low on spoons when what they mean is they've had a busy work and social life that week not that they are feeling essentially really unwell.

Yes! I went on training (for spoons) as a disabled person. It was awful, fucking spoons.

Really it’s not

This. Especially with the I would love to be healthy. It's a hell of a lot easier.
What's easier? Someone could be 'healthy' but homeless, healthy but have to work 3 jobs to survive.

How do you know who the other people in said class/group are who are masking, who struggle. As you say it’s invisible. No one has a monopoly on language.

But why spoons? Isn’t it more obvious to ask people how full their tank is? What’s depleted it today? What’s topped it up? What could they do to fill it up a bit more? A walk in the fresh air? Phone a friend you haven’t spoken to for while? Read a book? Meditate? Surely that’s where you want the conversation to go?

Of course, that sounds really tough for them and you might well be right in his instance. Being a young carer must be very hard. But I still maintain, across the board - not just looking at individuals, being disabled is a disadvantage. I'm not being cruel saying that, I am disabled. I would love to be healthy. It's a hell of a lot easier. That's why many disabilities are treated as protected characteristics.

Agree with @BarbarasRhabarberba it's twee, reductive and me-centric (sp?).
It's dismissive and saying 'nobody else is allowed to have hard times or struggle, just me).

There’s usually way more than one. Usually it’s better to actually articulate your thoughts than throwing rocks.

It can be the case that a disabled person has far fewer problems in their life than a non disabled person.

My daughter is disabled. She lives in a very stable, emotionally and financially secure home. We can buy her what she needs to help her feel less disabled by her environment and she is academically very bright. Her school has quite a number of kids from very deprived backgrounds. Quite a few of her peers are young carers or are “looked after” children. They struggle with being able to attend school, do homework, keep up socially with their friends. By every metric, my daughter has a brighter future ahead of her than those children, even with the abelism and discrimination she faces. Her disabled spoons are way more manageable than her peers’ spoons.

To me, assuming that a disabled person individually is automatically more disadvantaged than a non disabled person absent of any other issue, doesn’t sit comfortably.

🙄there’s always one

I didn’t know disabled people owned the rights to the spoon theory.

You don't just be disabled and then escape other problems. You have all the additional stuff life throws at you... and a disability. And often it's harder (rates of employment are lower/you're less likely to get promoted/men are much more likely to leave relationships with a sick partner/disabilities cost more/mental health problems are more likely).

I think it's cringe, so wouldn't use it, but as someone with an invisible disability I do actually understand the OP's point. Its origins relate to chronic illness and a lot of people who are ill/disabled do use it. With a lot of illnesses/disabilities, there's a certain amount of exhaustion/fatigue that is utterly incomprehensible and - well - chronic. I mean this respectfully, but you can't really comprehend that if you're healthy and it's a bit disrespectful, perhaps, to commandeer a term? Just a thought.

I first heard the phrase on a workshop for parents struggling with parenting neurodiverse children. It was said as a way of explaining and validating that there's a physical and mental limit to how much crap a person can deal with. It was a way of reassuring parents that it's ok to run out of energy sometimes. No one can always just keep going.

It's not really for anyone else to ask about spoons. I'd also say it's not really an appropriate analogy for someone without significant challenges going on so if you haven't heard the phrase it's probably a good thing for you.

I guess she's trying to be empathetic but I'd not be interested in publicly sharing how exhausting my day had been because of my child with additional needs, with anyone who didn't truly understand. Her use of the phrase does seem very superficial.

Yes the same thing has happened as another poster says above about 'feelings' and getting children in particular to focus on this and how are they feeling etc etc

Children are turning into self absorbed introspective navel gazers (as if children arent self absorbed enough, its in their CV) instead of looking outwards and thinking about themselves as part of the whole. Its really harming children

There is room and necessity for individuality but there needs to be balance.

I use spoons. Usually in a brutal gym class and I've ran out of them near the end.

Some people do, some people have never heard of them and some people think it's a pile of shit.

It doesn't matter. It's just a way of describing something

I suspect this is true, but it's also worse than that imo. There have actually been some studies done around the idea of destigmatizing mental health and emphasising mental illness as being just the same as physical illnesses.

The found this approach reduced people's sympathy to those with mental illness.

A lot of the work done around this, and things like increasing self-esteem, have had the opposite of the intended effect. i don't really understand why people keep pushing in that direction.

This.

Its totally wanky anyway.

I was thinking well I wouldn’t really know. I’ve got tea spoons and desert spoons. Big spoons that I dish up with. Couldn’t say how many in total. Never heard of spoon theory 🤷‍♀️

We’re in an interesting phase as people try to become more aware and understanding about our diversities. We are all figuring out the language and the best terms to use.

I think it's a bad idea for her to do this. I don't think it's actually great for kids to be encouraged to spend so much time thinking about how they feel in this way. It's one thing to help a tired child recognise that, another to try and dig for it. And especially all the time.

Well if you are doing this, others may also be and it could be deemed an easy way to let someone know you are struggling without having to explain details they wouldn't want to share.