The Spoon Theory

Today I FEEL broken. But I have a wonderful friend who I talk to online, who has been making me feel a little better able to cope. And so, I reminded myself why I started this blog: to keep myself mindful of the ways in which I can Bend and not Break.

I recently introduced said friend to the Spoon Theory, and he suggested I do a post about it here. This seems like an ideal time to do so.

The Spoon Theory can be found here.

It essentially is a way of describing to someone who is comparatively healthy most of the time what it is like to have a chronic condition. In the case of the original authour, it's Lupus, but for me it started as a way to explain the exhaustion I feel after large social events (from the dyspraxia), or why I couldn't deal with a lot of stress, or life at all really, at the worst of the depression. And now, it applies to the pain of HMS as well. The same friend suggested maybe it wasn't just spoons I needed, but knives and forks as well! That way I can have codes for days when I'm happy and neatly in my comfort zone for the day (plenty of knives and forks) but in pain (low on spoons)... or days when I'm not in much pain but something's got me down and I've got a million scary phonecalls to make (plenty of spoons, but no knives and forks)... it's a neat idea, but I probably won't catch on to it. It's enough to explain the spoon theory to every new person who asks about it without adding my own little quirks, though with certain friends who know me more closely, maybe I will.

While I'm on the subject, I want to say a bit about the community that has spring up around this wonderful Theory. I've been a regular particpant on the forums at butyoudontlooksick.com for several years, initially because of the depression I was then being treated for. It was thanks to reading around the site, talking to people and researching through links that I realised how HMS explained pretty much my entire life so far, and through reading others' stories and getting support and answers of my own got up the nerve to actually take that possibilty to my doctors. Without them, I would most likely still be suffering in silence, with no idea why I hurt and probably still getting occasionally written off sick with a scrip for cocodomol and a massage. Admittedly, a night like tonight I wouldn't turn down that scrip, but now I know what's going on, and I'm a step closer to being given back some of the bits of my life I've not been able to take back on my own. It's thanks to them, I am officially bendy, and not broken.