Often, people with autism find that explaining their experiences and difficulties to people who don’t have autism is challenging. Of course, it’s hard for anybody who has no first-hand experience of something to understand how it feels fully. Thus, the autistic community have turned to Spoon Theory. This analogy allows them to explain how autism affects their everyday lives in a way that non-autistic people can visualise.
What is the spoon theory?
Christine Miserandino devised Spoon Theory in 2010 to explain her struggles with Lupus to her friends.
In Spoon Theory, spoons are metaphors for mental and social energy that an individual with autism has available each day. Similar to our cutlery drawers in our house, there’s a limited amount of spoons that can be used daily. Different activities use up a different amount of spoons. How spoons are allocated to activities will look different for each individual.
If something unexpected happens, the individual can use up more spoons than anticipated by dipping into tomorrow’s spoon drawer. However, those spoons don’t get replaced for the next day, so they are still missing when the next day comes. Do you notice the issue here?
What happens when you run out of spoons?
When a person states that they have run out of spoons, they’re essentially saying they’ve run out of energy. This could be mental, social, emotional or physical energy or a combination. After they have run out of spoons, completing any more tasks during the day may be physically impossible for them.
Think of it like trying to eat soup with a fork. It would be very difficult and would take a while for you to finish the soup than it would if you had a spoon. Therefore, without any more spoons, you struggle to do any more activities in the day.
How do you get your spoons back?
People with autism need to rest to regain their spoons for the next day. What rest looks like, again, is different for each individual. Some autistic people need time alone without any social interaction, as social interaction might cost a lot of spoons for them. Other autistic people might need to be in complete silence and/or darkness if they have used a lot of spoons to spend time in a very loud, bright and busy environment.
Why is Spoon Theory so important for the autistic and disabled community?
Spoon Theory is important because it allows people with autism to explain their everyday difficulties to people who may not otherwise understand.
People with autism and other invisible conditions and disabilities often find that others have difficulty comprehending their difficulties since they can’t see them. They face stigma, hearing phrases like ‘but you don’t look ill’ and ‘you’re just being lazy’. Therefore, Spoon Theory is important to allowing neurotypical and non-disabled people to explain to those who may find it hard to understand what they experience daily.
The takeaway message
Spoon Theory is used by many neurodivergent and disabled people to help others understand how their struggles affect their abilities to perform everyday tasks. People with autism can experience sensory overload and can experience extreme mental fatigue after socialising. For those who don’t experience these things, it can be difficult to understand why this occurs. Therefore, Spoon Theory is incredibly useful for autistic and disabled communities to articulate their difficulties and reduce the stigma surrounding their conditions.