Spoonies have traditionally been thought of as people with serious, chronic illnesses of the body (outside of mental illnesses), but are people with serious, chronic mental illnesses really spoonies too? Personally, I identify as a spoonie and I think many people with serious, chronic mental illnesses are spoonies too. Read on to learn about what a spoonie is and how using the spoonie lexicon can help those with serious, chronic mental illness.
What Is a Spoonie?
Sorry if I’ve been using a word you don’t know. “Spoonie” is a word we commonly see online and it’s used around serious, chronic illnesses.
I’ll summarize what a spoonie is for you, but I encourage you to read the whole Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino.
Basically, healthy people get close to an unlimited number of “spoons” when they wake up in the morning. Each thing the person does uses up one or more spoons. So, showering might take two spoons while making breakfast for you and the kids might take four and, of course, getting through a workday would take many.
But if you’re a “spoonie,” you don’t have an unlimited number of spoons. Depending on how sick you are that day, you have a limited or even very limited number. This means you don’t have enough spoons to do everything you need to or want to do that day so you have to “spend” your spoons carefully. If you only start with eight, for example, would you choose to spend two showering or would you spend those two feeding yourself? Being a spoonie means making these hard decisions every minute of every day.
And while understanding what spoonies go through doesn’t give you a full understanding of what living with a serious, chronic illness is like, it does give you a sense of some of the limitations placed on people in these situations. It also gives you insight into why a spoonie might not be able to attend social events or even leave the house at times — they are simply out of spoons.
People with Serious Mental Illnesses Being Spoonies
As I said, the concept of being a “spoonie” isn’t seen a lot in the arena of mental illness. This is just typical of the way people separate mental illness from other physical illnesses. So if you have a serious, chronic illness that affects your spine, for example, you’re automatically a spoonie but if you have a serious, chronic mental illness, you’re not thought of in the same way just because the illness is in your brain. I don’t think people are generally doing this with malice or ill intent, it’s just kind of what happens.
But many mental illnesses are serious and chronic. Yes, some people achieve remission and that’s great, but many don’t. Many people live with serious mental illnesses in a chronic way that is a disability for them. This puts them directly into the spoonie camp.
And just for myself, personally, when I read about the struggles of spoonies, I identify with them tremendously. I know I stand with them whether people realize it or not.
Why Should Those with Mental Illness Care About ‘The Spoon Theory?’
So I think we should bring the spoonie concept into our world. It’s incredibly useful in terms of explaining some of what’s going on for us. It also provides us with a shorthand — sorry, I can’t talk to you right now, I’m out of spoons.
When I talk about spoons today, some people get it and some people don’t. I would like to be more prolific so we can use this language to speak to each other. Because people with serious, chronic mental illnesses are just like those with serious, chronic illnesses of other types. I am just like a person with a serious autoimmune disorder. We are really all together. And we all really can support each other with common terms and ideas. We are all part of the spoonie community. We can also lead the way in helping people understand that mental illnesses are simply disorders of the brain and belong in the same categories as other physical illnesses. Us starting to use The Spoon Theory concepts can actually help do that. It promotes equality.
So yes. My name is Natasha Tracy. I have a serious, chronic illness of the brain and I am a spoonie.
Image by Flickr user scribbletaylor.
Thanks to your article/post, I now know that I’m a spoonie. Thanks, Natasha, for another good article.
I can relate to the term spoonies, in the past several month I have had to try different meds because the one that has worked for me for 20 years stopped working as efficient as it use to. I can see that with this explanation it might have helped to see in the beginning of new meds I probably had only 2 spoons and as the meds increased I either gained more spoons or lost more. I am on a new increase of an older med that I took and find some days evening thinking of using several spoons to drive would have been impossible. Spoonie Kind of makes sense.
I do not suffer from chronic mental illness – but I do have a chronic physical disease that causes pain & effects my immune system, energy levels, as well as my state of mind. I can very much relate to the allegory of waking up with “a lot on my plate”, and a lot of will to get it done, but having a limited amount of energy spoons, with which to take bites out of life, compared to healthier people.
Like with mental disorders, there is nothing apparent looking at me from the outside, that I am spoonless, rather than clueless – or lazy.
Much thanks for a well written post.
Love & understanding towards one another, is always the best solution. We are in this life together, for a reason.
I identify with having a chronic mental illness and with that comes chronic physical illness. Using the “spoonie” label just adds one more label that borders on another fad to identify me. Using 1 spoon or 10 doesn’t help in any area of my illnesses. I just feel like shit today and can’t do one thing, pretty much sums up things rather nicely.
I applaud you on your writing about mental illness in an open and honest manner. I am anxious to read your book…..I know it will be good.
Hi OllieB,
The thing about “spoonie” is it’s a self-identified term made up by spoonies, for spoonies because the metaphor spoke to them. And I use it like shorthand between me and others who know.
If you don’t identify with it or don’t want to use it, that’s okay.
Thank you for your kind words. I hope you enjoy the book :)
– Natasha Tracy
Nice information. Thanks! :)
I forgot to mention in my previous comment that I am also autistic and have seen some autistic people use spoon theory or call themselves spoonies (including me). Autism kind of hangs between the mental and physical worlds but I just thought I’d mention it because it is a community not normally thought of as spoonies. Many autistics do deal with comorbidities of all sorts and those other illnesses could be why some autistic people use the Spoonie language.
I have lived with serious chronic mental illness’s for most of my life. Then in my 20s I started getting chronic pain and fast forward about 20 years and my serious chronic physical illnesses are as bad as the mental illnesses, if not worse at times. But the whole thinking of it all as separate has always seemed silly to me. Mental illness is physical illness. It’s caused by things wrong in our brain (and possibly our gut/microbiome or second brain or other things we haven’t even learned of yet). Sure some of it can be set off by experiences/environment but that’s the same with most “physical” illnesses. Even cancer has environmental/life choice element to it, a pretty big part they’ve actually learned.
I just don’t see the point in separating mental and physical. It encourages stigma and inferior care/insurance coverage. Also, there are a lot of physical symptoms in mental illness. In some countries pain is the first indicator that someone may be suffering from depression, due to how different cultures talk about (or don’t) mental illness. It’s just literally wrong that mental illness and physical illness aren’t all part of the same thing.
As for me, I didn’t learn about the spoon theory until I had been diagnosed with a serious chronic “physical” illness, but I consider myself a Spoonie, the whole me, including my mental illnesses. I’ve been on disability for 14 years because of bipolar disorder. It is a disability for me and it truly does limit the spoons I’m dealt. So I’m a Spoonie through and through.
I support your idea to spread Spoon theory to those with mental illnesses. Fundamentally a Spoonie is someone ill enough that they live with limitations on their life. What that illness is has never mattered before and I don’t see why it should matter if that illness happens to be a “mental” illness. We Spoonies need to stick together no matter what the origin of our illness is.
I personally don’t like being called a spoonie,I think the term is derogatory.
Hi Poppy,
That’s interesting. Why is that?
– Natasha Tracy