About three years ago I came across an article called “The Spoon Theory,” written by Christine Miserandino. In the article, she describes what it is like for her to be sick with Lupus. The article really spoke to me because of personally having Bipolar, with anxiety and panic attacks. I cannot stress enough how draining it is to have a mental illness, just like so many other illnesses.
On top of my own mental illness, I am the primary caregiver of my son who has ADHD and sensory processing disorder. Being his mother is a roller-coaster of frustration, as well as being so proud. The hardest part of being his caregiver has been co-parenting with his father, because he does not acknowledge that his son needs help. All of this requires more spoons.
I started to really think about this for a little while. As I pondered on the idea of how many spoons I use in just one day to just get through the day alone is already high. This is greatly my fault since I have a cognitive distortion of polarized thinking, on top of always trying to be perfect. You can say it’s like I have to be perfect or else I am completely failing (black and white views). Having this mind set, my daily goal is simple: Let me look presentable and like I have my life together.
So, lets put this into perspective of spoons used to just look presentable and get my kids to my sisters and me to work:
- Wake up
- Get out of bed
- Shower
- Brush teeth
- Get dressed
- Wake the boys up (which is a losing battle)
- Get the boys dressed
- Make breakfast for the boys
- Get lunch packed for both me and the boys
- Make sure shoes are on (which is on repeat for 5 more time of saying it)
- Jackets and any bags or toys or anything they need
- Pack up all my stuff in my bag
- Lights off out the door
- Make sure to lock the door
- Keep the boys quiet while going down three flights of stairs
- Get them in the car and buckled
- Drive to my sisters
- Unbuckle and make sure they grab everything
- Walk them to her door
- Walk back to car and drive to commuter lot.
- Park and walk to line and wait my turn for a ride.
Now, this list is the bare bones of my mornings. That is 21 spoons minimum for my day to just function on autopilot with nothing else interfering with the routine. Well let me tell you…I have a 7-year-old that has ADHD so is always getting distracted and not paying attention 90% of the time, and a 4-year -old that doesn’t want to do anything for himself. Lately, it has been meltdown city over here since after the holidays and changes going into effect for custody agreement so its a lot of transitions and adjustments right now. Also, we must add in my depression that causes some of these tasks to require two or more spoons to accomplish them.
Considering how quick it is to lose spoons for the day, imagine how easy it is to need to borrow from other days. Some tasks are difficult for me to do with my anxiety. The days I do difficult tasks, such as phone calls, going to a crowded store or anything that requires me to talk to people about something confrontational, I use more spoons from other days. By mid-week I have only gotten a small portion of my to-do list done and I am spoonless and drained to the max.
When I read that article, it changed the way I thought about things. I have realized that part of my self-care was that I needed to be more aware of how I spend my spoons for the day. It has been a slow process, I admit. I still try to take on too much. However, I am learning to say no when others ask me to do more things and am realizing that when I do take on to much that I need to remove myself from some things. There will always be events that you cannot control, mine are how my kids will react to things or how loud they will be; but, if I am not using all my spoons for unnecessary things then I will have extra spoons that I can borrow when needed.
Silver Linings 