Many thanks to your wonderful site, it is now in my favourites, having lived with fybro plus lots of other things as well it is nice to see things and know what to say when people think you look ok and why have you a blue badge etc.
Many thanks

Christine, I was often asked by people within the community if I had read "The Spoon Theory". My answer would always be "No, but it seems to have affected a lot of people".

After taking the time to read it this morning, all I can say is THANK YOU! That is the best description of chronic illness I have ever read.

You have written a better tool to explain what it is like to be me.

I'm glad I came across the "Spoon Theory". Describes my life to a tee. We all know how hard it is to get a healthy person to understand our lives...this is a excellent description!!! Thank you Christine!

Christine...as I've told you before, you're an inspiration :) As we hurt, we hurt together!!! We are not alone! **gentlehugs**

Thank you so much for saying what I have not been able to put into words. I am an NTM patient and my friends and family just have no conception that I'm working with a limited number of spoons. May I please reprint this for my friends who would never take time to read this on the internet? I feel just reading this has already lightened my load. Thanks!

WOW - I really identified this - it is a very helpful approach, and definitely described the situation ... Thanks -
Ellen (RA since 2004 or before)

Thank you so much. My BFF deals with post-polio. I just read this to her, and she found it extremely moving. She wants me to tell you that she's been declining more rapidly over the past ten years, and she found your description incredibly on target and creative. It felt really good to hear somebody describe it in a way that can be understood by "normies". She says she never bothered to try to explain it because she didn't think she ever could, and she's grateful to you for sharing.

I first read the Spoon Theory on a MS blog site (Sunshine and Moonlight on wordpress) and it was exactly the way I needed to be able to explain things to those around me. I have recently been diagnosed with MS and it is very frustrating the symptoms this crazy disease causes and because there is "nothing" to see people don't know how to react or what to do and before I was diagnosed it was difficult to make people understand the symptoms. THANK YOU this certainly has helped me!!

Wow, reading "The Spoon Theory" had me in tears after the first few sentences, it hit so close to home. I have sarcoidosis and life is a daily battle. No one understands how we have to plan every detail to manage our lives, just to get thrus simple acts that healthy people take for granted. I thank you for putting into words, what I have not been able to in 14 years.

What an awesome story! I do not suffer from lupus, but from fibromyalgia. There have been many times I have wished for the right explanation/description of what I struggle with, and I think I have just found it! Thank you for this!

Reading that had me in tears as it describes me to a T!! This site is in my favourites and will be referring my family to it. It explains me in a way /I cannot describe

thanks!

i just have to tell you this...i am not "chronically sick" as most people would think about it, but i *do* have my moments. the fact that i'm way too overweight makes people look at me as if i'm just lazy. what they can't see is the pain i go through because of the weight and the fact that i have difficulty working out because i'm in pain. it's all just a viscious circle and it sux. having to rent a mobie on the 3rd day of my trip to disneyland was one of the worst experiences of my life, but it was necessary. i would love to be able to carry around this story and hand it to those people who look down on me because of the pain that i'm experiencing. thank you for enlightening the rest of the world for those who experience illnesses yet look nearly "normal". my friend Sarah showed me this story first, and it's because of her that i always carry around a small stack of spoons just in case she needs them. not for me...but for her.

We have an endless shortage of spoons in my family, all four of us. Thanks.

Touching and heartfelt...a language all of its own. Don't know how it became 11:30pm but feel like going out to the grocery store and buying a box of plastic spoons. Thanks for the imagery and sharing. It brought a tear of understanding and compassion. Thanks for the beautiful explanation and images.

When I saw the title Spoon Theory, I thought of an exercise from when I was training to be a volunteer counselor for survivors of sexual violence. The group of trainees was divided into two teams. Each team got a utensil and as many beans as they wanted. The idea was a relay to see who could get the most beans into a bucket at the other side of the room. The other team got a ladle, I got a tablespoon. Then as I'm trying to balance as many dried beans as possible on a tablespoon the trainer starts telling me what a bad job I'm doing compared to the woman with the ladle. But she does not acknowledge that I've got a spoon and the other team has a ladle.

This was an important moment for me because it felt exactly how many people treated me after I developed severe migraines and eventually an unrelated mental illness. When I spoke about this after the exercise the trainer told me this is what oppression feels like.

I love your spoon theory because it gets to the heart of what a disability requires, and I love my spoon story because it shows what it feels like to live in a world that often does not acknowledge our effort.

Best,
Alison

Alison Bergblom Johnson
Writing Mental Illness Workshops

I am so glad that I found this website and story. I have been trying for years to find the right way to explain to my friends the challenges that make up everyday for me. I especially do not see myself as breakable as some people think when it comes to chronic illness. But I do have challenges that make the amount of "Spoons" I have fewer than most.

I have Juvenile Dermatomystis, another auto-immune disease, that causes my body to be weak and sun intolerant. For 13 years, my doctors have worked with me, and have not found the right treatments for me. I even was allegric to a few of the meds. and they made my disorder even worse.

Normal active that others, even including myself at times, take for granted can cause my body to fight me. It has been 2 year since I could reach down and pick something off the floor, which is strange to say being only 23 years old.

Again, thank you for coming up with this wonderful way to explain our challenges. I do not see the challeges as completely a bad thing. I see them more as away to become the people we are supposed to be in life. However, it is nice to have away to remind people that eventhough I work with my challenges, I still have them and need to try to safe a few "Spoons" each day to roll over, "like the minutes", for the next day or the future. When I find that I do not have any flatware left in the draw, I can pull out the ones that I have been saving away.

I read your spoon theory letter several years ago, it was probably copied and pasted a million times. I never knew it was connected to a web-site till today.
The letter is just as great as it was the first time I read it, not that sickness is great, but that it could be illustrated so easily so that others could understand what goes on in the daily living of someone with an unseen sickness.
I have had fibro since at least 1992, if not symptoms way before that. I have children who have it, and at least 2 siblings.
I hope your day is better and God Bless.
Deb

Hi Christine...

I, too, would like to thank you and congratulate you on your "spoon theory"..I'm 25, recently diagnosed with serronegative arthritis and on DMARD's now.

There couldn't be any better way to describe how it feels! As I am in the beginning of my chronic condition (still hard to accept it), I have all those feelings I can't put in words even in my own thoughts. So your article really helped me express myself to...ehm...myself! Before all this, I never wanted to be normal, carefully choosing the way I dress, the music I listen to...and now all I want to do is be normal! Be able to have a drink without thinking about my liver, dance without stiffness and pain, not having to check on my blood pressure every now and then...

I'd like to use your theory to explain the way I feel to the people close to me. Thank you so much for this! I'm probably lucky having stumbled across your article so soon!

Best regards!

Christine,
I too found this a powerful way to explain how I feel some days. A friend read your article and explained it to me when we were both having a low day.
I have chronic depression, generalized social anxiety, and agorophobia. While I may not experience physical pain, I am often immobilized by other things going on in my head that I can't explain to others.
While I still have a hard time explaining what it is I do all day, I can now say that I start off with a limited amount of energy that I may spend more quickly or less efficiently than others using the spoon analogy.
I would just like to add that sometimes, doing positive activities such as spending time with my cat or low impact friends or even going to the gym on good days can result in me getting "extra" spoons for that day.
I just wanted to let you know that, while this has not caused me to redefine my disease, it has allowed me to make it a little more understandable to others.
Thanks

Thank you so much. I was having a really rough time, trying to figure out how to explain things (I have Fibromyalgia etc.) - and a friend linked to the Spoon Theory. Now I have a way to explain things, and having looked around the site, and other comments, I don't feel so alone. Thank you.

My best friend has struggled with chronic illness for some time (syringomyelia, epilepsy, et al) and she mentioned spoon theory today.

I thought I understood her tiredness and the need to pace herself, but your spoon theory (which she mentioned today) has made things so much clearer.

Thanks for a great visual tool.

Thank you for taking the time to create this article. I was "hit" by redirected lightening in July 2007..it wasn't until Sept 2007 that i had a "TIA-like/Stroke-like" episode. This describes the challenges I have face daily since then..pain, depression, lack of energy to do even the most basic things at times. Sometimes it just hurts to cry..but i can now explain it in terms that are easily understood..Thank you!

My BFF has fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. This perfectly explains the regimen she's had to put her life into, and that she has such a hard time explaining to anyone but her closest friends. Well people just cannot understand that rationing of energy and activity. Thank you so much for this. I almost started crying at the realization that there is a way to explain the choices she has to make to live a life that approaches normal for her, let alone for well people.

Thank you. The best things are the most simple.

Christine, I just read your Spoon Theory. I have RSD and it sure sounds like my situation. I haven't been able to work since 2005 and am still waiting for my disability. There are days I just give up trying to explain my problem. May i print this out so I can hand it to whoever seems to have a problem with me. Thank God my daughter is behind me and tells me to just never mind anyone else. Again thank you for sharing this.

I found the spoon theory to be a very moving piece. My mom has lupus and your theory has helped me realize she is sick. I am not even sure of the words I want to write here. I know that I have not always understood her problems and the spoon theory helps. As I am sure it will help my loved ones as we try to figure out the cause of my pain, fatigue.....thank-you from the bottom of a young mom's heart.

I was given details of this site a few years ago, and found the site and the Spoon Theory in particular really, really useful. I have used the Spoon Theory to explain my illness to my family and friends and it has made things so much easier for all of us. I have recently recommended the Spoon Theory to a lady who has just been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and is having a really bad time of it all, her family don't understand her and her 'best' friend thinks she's being lazy! The Spoon Theory has given her hope. Thankyou, Thankyou, Thankyou xx

I've had RA since 1990 and we've never really gotten it under control. Now, my RA doc tells me I also have fibro. I've struggled for 19 years now, trying to find someway to help my in-laws to understand what I (and their son) have to deal with everyday. Somehow, they can't get past the "But, you don't look sick." stage. Your Spoon Theory puts it so well.
I hope you will let me copy it, so they can read it. (They are in their 80's and are most assuredly computer-phobic!)
Thanks again for putting into words what I have been trying to say now for almost 2 decades!!
Gentle Hugs,
Mary Ann

I first read this over 7 years ago when requesting a "Reasonable Accommodation" for my job. I cried like a baby. I periodically send the link to friends who don't "get it". The Spoon Theory still brings tears to my eyes because it is so dead on. Thank you, thank you, thank you! (I included it in my request and got it!)

I have asthma and your "spoon" analogy is the perfect way for me to explain to "healthy" friends why I cannot jeapordize losing my "spoons" by doing things without advance planning... to have a mask, a backup driver, a portable pharmacy, and especially not missing meds. Just not having a mask may mean the difference in losing a day with a short asthma attack to a week to months with a severe attack and resulting asthmatic bronchitis with steroids that leave me with disabling aftereffects for months. Sometimes one "spoon" loss causes the loss of of many more days/weeks of spoons and a fulfilling life. Thank you.