Spoon Theory (Please Read!)

Please take the time to read Christine Miserandino’s personal story and analogy of what it is like to live with sickness or disability. This is a really useful theory/practice that more and more people (including some of the Malabu housies) who live with disability and sickness use to simply/practically quantify and explain their capacity/capabilities to peeps around them. Its totally a useful tool for some of us and you may well encounter it in your interactions and collective workings with your amazing peeps (all of whom have different, and shifting, strengths, energies and capacity).

A link to her article is here.

A PDF is here for your perusal/download.

It's important to recognise that Christine's experience is based in her experience of living with Lupus. We all have our own experience of sickness and disability. The people who you work with, associate with, love with, commune with, etc will most likely not have the same experience. When someone tells you that they are "low on spoons", or that they "don't have the spoons" try to appreciate and respect them for their honesty, they are telling you out of respect and consideration for you, and they're probably dealing with some internalised shaming and blaming. Ableism is just as real as racism and sexism, and its a powerful form of oppression, stigma and discrimination. It's your responsibility to spend some time and energy to find out how you can be a good supporter, and ally, of the people in your communities who live with sickness and/or disability. Your work on this will be greatly appreciated and your relationships will be stronger for it.

Here is a quote from the article to give ya'll a glimpse of what this is about:
"I asked her to count her spoons. She asked why, and I explained that when you are healthy you expect to have a never-ending supply of “spoons”. But when you have to now plan your day, you need to know exactly how many “spoons” you are starting with. It doesn’t guarantee that you might not lose some along the way, but at least it helps to know where you are starting. She counted out 12 spoons. She laughed and said she wanted more. I said no, and I knew right away that this little game would work, when she looked disappointed, and we hadn’t even started yet. I’ve wanted more “spoons” for years and haven’t found a way yet to get more, why should she?"

Equality means treating people as individuals, with unique needs and desires. Thank you for taking the time to think about your communities and the diversity amongst the individuals that create them.