I wrote a blog post two years ago about Spoon Theory, which is a concept of limited energy to do things in daily life. Recently, a friend linked me to an autistic blogger who wrote a similar, broader explanation of how much time it takes to be with people. She titled it "My Gift is Time." I highly recommend you read it.
She talks about how many hours it takes to be prepared and decompress from one outing, and the numbers are high. A dozen or more hours to go someplace new for a hobby. At best, six hours prep/decompression to one hour of fun. I've never personally tried to ballpark the amount of time it takes me to gear up and calm down from activities... but I think that's because I tend to try to keep busy with other things, rather than taking notes about how bad I feel. (I'm not sure that's a fair assessment of what this author does to unwind after events, but I definitely try not to think about how stressful an event was lest it stress me out more.)
Spoon Theory, too, talks about spending limited energy on tasks and people. The author of Spoon Theory suffers from Lupus, which is a physical disability, an invisible but powerful disease where the body attacks itself. Like the author of "My Gift is Time," this author also makes careful count of how much effort an activity costs her. She uses spoons as an easy-to-understand system for energy. One spoon per activity, generally.
Hours and spoons, to count off time and effort. Just like the last time I talked about Spoon Theory, I have no idea how to quantify the effort it costs me to spend time with people, go to new places, and do unfamiliar things. It definitely costs me, and some days a lot more than others. But I never seem to have a sense for how much energy (time, spoons, whatever) an activity is going to cost me, nor do I have any real sense for how much energy I start a day with.
I've made comparisons for this in the past to the gas gauge on my first car. Though my current car follows suit, frankly, so maybe the designers are doing the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" mentality about car design in general. Gas gauges, of course, go from "full" to "empty." Logically, when the tank is full, the gauge should read full, and when it's empty, it should read empty. At half-full, it should read half-full. Does this seem obvious to you? It's apparently not to car designers. When my car has 2/3s of a tank of gas, it reads that it's half-full. When the needle points at "empty" it usually has at least three gallons of gas still in its 20 gallon gas tank. This is vastly counter-intuitive to me. I'm sure the car companies do it so people won't accidentally run out of gas, but it puzzles and annoys me. I can't trust my gas gauge. All it does is tell me that I need to plan on going to get more gas "sometime soon."
My mental and emotional gas gauge is somewhat the same, except that instead of starting at "full" and working its way slowly down, it starts at "maybe okay?" and stays there right until it swaps to "not okay" and, if circumstances prompt, "VERY NOT OKAY, DROP WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING AND GET OUT." (The last one is analogous to the car running entirely out of gas, and refusing to start/move.) Like the car's gas gauge pointing at "empty," I can run on "not okay" for a very long time. I rarely actually run out of gas, at least in part because I'm very cautious about pushing my reserves.
Life being what it is, though, I do have to push my reserves sometimes. Recently I had some family in town. I rarely see these particular family-people, because they live on the other side of the country. No one's fault, just how these things shake out. So even though I was tired, in lots of pain from female-organ cramps, and just wanted to curl up in bed and do nothing, I buckled up, changed into clothes suitable for wearing outside, and proceeded to spend upwards of five hours being social.
This was worthwhile effort. The outing was pleasant for a number of reasons. But just like in the story of Spoon Theory, I had to borrow "spoons" (energy) from the day after, and from my reserves. I tend to call it "borrowing spoons from the ether" because I have absolutely no idea how many spoons are in my reserves, I just have to pray there's enough to get me through the activity without needing to hide in a bathroom and cry, or leave early, or another of the various "emergency coping" mechanisms I've had to resort to over the years.
Perhaps in another two years, I'll have developed a proper system for rationing my energy, time, and sanity. Perhaps I'll be able to adopt Spoon Theory properly, having discovered a method of counting my "spoons." Perhaps I'll develop a way to count hours of preparation and hours of recovery, like the author of "My Gift is Time." Or perhaps I'll opt for something a like more like video games, and invent a system with Energy Points, and give various activities a difficulty rating based on how hard they are. Perhaps some days will be so bad, I'll decide that every activity costs me twice the energy points. And maybe I'll have days so nice, activities will cost half the energy points.
Maybe reading a book for pleasure could restore energy points, or going outside for a few minutes to sit quietly in the sun. Or meditation might do it, if I ever manage to slow my mind down enough to benefit from it. Two years is a long time by some measures. Let's hope I can manage it.
She talks about how many hours it takes to be prepared and decompress from one outing, and the numbers are high. A dozen or more hours to go someplace new for a hobby. At best, six hours prep/decompression to one hour of fun. I've never personally tried to ballpark the amount of time it takes me to gear up and calm down from activities... but I think that's because I tend to try to keep busy with other things, rather than taking notes about how bad I feel. (I'm not sure that's a fair assessment of what this author does to unwind after events, but I definitely try not to think about how stressful an event was lest it stress me out more.)
Spoon Theory, too, talks about spending limited energy on tasks and people. The author of Spoon Theory suffers from Lupus, which is a physical disability, an invisible but powerful disease where the body attacks itself. Like the author of "My Gift is Time," this author also makes careful count of how much effort an activity costs her. She uses spoons as an easy-to-understand system for energy. One spoon per activity, generally.
Hours and spoons, to count off time and effort. Just like the last time I talked about Spoon Theory, I have no idea how to quantify the effort it costs me to spend time with people, go to new places, and do unfamiliar things. It definitely costs me, and some days a lot more than others. But I never seem to have a sense for how much energy (time, spoons, whatever) an activity is going to cost me, nor do I have any real sense for how much energy I start a day with.
I've made comparisons for this in the past to the gas gauge on my first car. Though my current car follows suit, frankly, so maybe the designers are doing the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" mentality about car design in general. Gas gauges, of course, go from "full" to "empty." Logically, when the tank is full, the gauge should read full, and when it's empty, it should read empty. At half-full, it should read half-full. Does this seem obvious to you? It's apparently not to car designers. When my car has 2/3s of a tank of gas, it reads that it's half-full. When the needle points at "empty" it usually has at least three gallons of gas still in its 20 gallon gas tank. This is vastly counter-intuitive to me. I'm sure the car companies do it so people won't accidentally run out of gas, but it puzzles and annoys me. I can't trust my gas gauge. All it does is tell me that I need to plan on going to get more gas "sometime soon."
My mental and emotional gas gauge is somewhat the same, except that instead of starting at "full" and working its way slowly down, it starts at "maybe okay?" and stays there right until it swaps to "not okay" and, if circumstances prompt, "VERY NOT OKAY, DROP WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING AND GET OUT." (The last one is analogous to the car running entirely out of gas, and refusing to start/move.) Like the car's gas gauge pointing at "empty," I can run on "not okay" for a very long time. I rarely actually run out of gas, at least in part because I'm very cautious about pushing my reserves.
Life being what it is, though, I do have to push my reserves sometimes. Recently I had some family in town. I rarely see these particular family-people, because they live on the other side of the country. No one's fault, just how these things shake out. So even though I was tired, in lots of pain from female-organ cramps, and just wanted to curl up in bed and do nothing, I buckled up, changed into clothes suitable for wearing outside, and proceeded to spend upwards of five hours being social.
This was worthwhile effort. The outing was pleasant for a number of reasons. But just like in the story of Spoon Theory, I had to borrow "spoons" (energy) from the day after, and from my reserves. I tend to call it "borrowing spoons from the ether" because I have absolutely no idea how many spoons are in my reserves, I just have to pray there's enough to get me through the activity without needing to hide in a bathroom and cry, or leave early, or another of the various "emergency coping" mechanisms I've had to resort to over the years.
Perhaps in another two years, I'll have developed a proper system for rationing my energy, time, and sanity. Perhaps I'll be able to adopt Spoon Theory properly, having discovered a method of counting my "spoons." Perhaps I'll develop a way to count hours of preparation and hours of recovery, like the author of "My Gift is Time." Or perhaps I'll opt for something a like more like video games, and invent a system with Energy Points, and give various activities a difficulty rating based on how hard they are. Perhaps some days will be so bad, I'll decide that every activity costs me twice the energy points. And maybe I'll have days so nice, activities will cost half the energy points.
Maybe reading a book for pleasure could restore energy points, or going outside for a few minutes to sit quietly in the sun. Or meditation might do it, if I ever manage to slow my mind down enough to benefit from it. Two years is a long time by some measures. Let's hope I can manage it.
No comments:
Post a Comment