UNIFIED CUTLERY THEORY

This is a combination of Spoon Theory, Fork Theory and Knife Theory, metaphors used to help disabled people explain fatigue and stressors to themselves and abled people.

Abled friends please share! May is Mental Health month and this applies here.
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Credits to original authors:

Spoon Theory - Christine Miserandino
Fork Theory - Jenrose
Knife Hypothesis - Terry Masson

I will @ them at the end of this thread so not to spam them unduly.
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SPOON THEORY

The first part of Unified Cutlery Theory is the essential element of energy: The spoon. The spoon is an arbitrary unit of capacity for action throughout the day.
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A spoon doesn't have to be only physical energy. Mental energy, or executive function can all be represented by spoons.
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You wake with a certain number of spoons. How many you have depend on you as an individual, your conditions and environment. It's not always the same, and may vary with time.
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And throughout the day, you spend those spoons on tasks. Brushing your teeth might be one spoon. Making a meal could be three. A day's work might be six or more. Costs vary between individuals, and for some a trivial task may be quite costly or vice versa.
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To a person with limited spoons, this can mean making hard choices between daily activities. And can result in reaching the end of the day without the spoons to eat or wash - only sleep. Worse, being severely low on spoons can, for some, even make sleep difficult.
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Spoons are only recovered by rest. As mentioned, being low on spoons can sometimes make even this hard, and leave us waking with fewer spoons than expected.
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It's common to try to 'save up' spoons for a big expenditure, but we have our limits. It's never as much as an abled person.
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A common phrase is 'I don't have the spoons for this.'

This means a person feels that engaging in an activity would be too costly to their energy today, or even cost them tomorrow's energy as well, or that they're already too low.

Be considerate when we say this.
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For some, spoons can come in different sizes. You may have some large spoons, and several small ones. In this case, it means your allotment of energy can't so easily be consolidated for different tasks.
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You can keep spending small spoons on little things but while you don't have enough large ones, even if the total volume of small spoons would add up to it, you simply cannot do it.
Note: The variable spoon sizes is sometimes called the 'Spell Slot' theory of fatigue.
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For many people, these disabilities are invisible. While spoons are high, we might appear perfectly abled in energy and behaviour, even though the very next task might be the last one we can do in the day before collapsing.

Believe invisible disabilities.
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FORK THEORY

Forks are stressors. You can only cope with so many stuck in you before you hit your limit and their very presence can limit your ability to spend and recover spoons.
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Anything that makes you feel worse can be a fork, even as little as feeling hungry. Financial or relationship stress can be even bigger forks.
When you hit your limit, you're done. You cannot handle any more.
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This is especially relevant for neurodivergent people. Myself, for example, sufficient forks can force me to cry uncontrollably for an hour and/or become nonverbal. Our forks may be so much different from those of neurotypicals, so much that they're invisible.
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How an individual is able to handle quantity and size of forks varies greatly. You may be tolerant of any number of tiny forks stuck in you, but a single pitchfork can destroy you in one go.
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Or you might be able to tolerate a huge fork but it leaves very little room for smaller ones. The 'straw that breaks the camel's back' can apply here. Albeit in this case, a fork that does so.
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Having too many forks can mean you can't access your spoons, even if you're full up. And dealing with removing forks themselves is often a costly task.
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Sometimes the only thing you can do is abandon your current situation and try to remove the fork you can get rid of the fastest.

Sometimes, those forks are people. :I
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KNIFE THEORY

Sometimes you are out of spoons, or are too full of forks to access them. But you decide to keep going. The only thing left in the drawer are knives.
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A knife represents overspending of energy that draws from the future. To push yourself, sometimes dangerously, beyond your limits.
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A knife can be spent in place of a spoon, again varying in size and amount depending on the individual and the tasks at hand. It can be that this works and you get it done, but you know that tomorrow it will cost you.
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Knives can hurt. Each spent might take away one spoon from tomorrow. They might take more. And that means without so many spoons... you can only spend further knives.
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This can result in a spiral of ever increasing fatigue until you have nothing to spend but knives, reach your limit of those, and crash.
I have had days where I slept over 20 hours due to extreme overspending. Sometimes the aftereffects last the rest of the week.
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