I was telling someone recently about the “spoons” metaphor. I guessed they probably hadn’t heard that before so before I said what I really wanted to say, I explained it. Basically, it means “unit of energy” and the idea is that we each have a different number of units each day depending on our ability / health.
In the time that it took to explain that, I could have just said what I needed to. How did it become so popular? The spoon doesn’t even symbolise anything itself. So while I think it made a good visual demo when the first person presented it, I think it lands differently with people in conversation.
It is somehow reassuring to hear other people using it. It has shown me how many people struggle this way that I never realised before. But I think I’ll stick with “batteries” or something that’s easier to explain to people who aren’t in the loop.
Thoughts?
Edit: The metaphor was invented by Christine Miserandino to illustrate her experience of lupus to someone in a café. I assume the cutlery was the best illustration device to hand in that situation and quite effective.
It’s helped me to understand that there is a concept of limited energy, and “borrowing spoons” is helpful in a way. However you’re right, it doesn’t really hold or translate well.
My own energy levels day to day are pretty variable (with a cap of course) so what I could be fine with doing one day, the next day I could be destroyed by and it’s not super predictable so I can’t “count out my spoons” very reliably.
It also doesn’t account a whole lot for unpredictable affecting factors like underlying stress, sensory triggers, unexpected events, etc. Unfortunately though there’s not exactly a standard unit for this concept so spoons is what we have for awareness ¯\(ツ)/¯
Yeah, I haven’t found it helpful for planning or keeping track of energy. Although, I haven’t tried to assign a spoon “value” to different tasks. The variability is the biggest problem for me too. It’s very hard to make plans with people unless they’re very understanding about cancellations.