this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2024
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Chronic Illness
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A community/support group for chronically ill people. While anyone is welcome, our number one priority is keeping this a safe space for chronically ill people.
This is a support group, not a place for people to spout their opinions on disability.
Rules
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Be excellent to each other
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Absolutely no ableism. This includes harmful stereotypes: lazy/freeloaders etc
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No quackery. Does an up-to date major review in a big journal or a major government guideline come to the conclusion you’re claiming is fact? No? Then don’t claim it’s fact. This applies to potential treatments and disease mechanisms.
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No denialism or minimisation This applies challenges faced by chronically ill people.
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No psychosomatising psychosomatisation is a tool used by insurance companies and governments to blame physical illnesses on mental problems, and thereby saving money by not paying benefits. There is no concrete proof psychosomatic or functional disease exists with the vast majority of historical diagnoses turning out to be biomedical illnesses medicine has not discovered yet. Psychosomatics is rooted in misogyny, and consisted up until very recently of blaming women’s health complaints on “hysteria”.
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It’s a way chronically ill people talk about energy.
Our bodies tend not to be as resilient as healthy people. So if we do too much (ie. use too many spoons), instead of recovering after a day or two like healthy people would if they did too much, we tend to have our health worsen for long periods.
So the analogy is you have a limited number of “spoons” (energy) each day, and you have to use it wisely.
Obviously, this doesn’t impact every disability and is mostly used by chronically ill people and people with energy limiting conditions.
While I love spoon theory I think it's a poor metaphor to use for general audiences as it requires a lot of context. I guess this tweet is not really targeted at everyone, but just a rant to their circle.
What metaphor would you suggest instead? At least in my experience, the term is becoming understood more and more by the mainstream.
A bucket full of a liquid. That bucket has a faucet over top of it that fills it at x rate constantly. For disabled people it fills more slowly than normal abled people so pouring energy out is more costly timewise and must be calculated carefully.
While I do like this metaphor, I think it's not useful as a shorthand. Once you explain spoons to people in your life, and they understand, it's a useful tool to catch their attention and help them realise that energy isn't an abundant resource for you.