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If you can use spoons, how do you make them?

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Innordinate

MyPTSD Pro
For those of you who don't know what the spoons are here's a little info:

The spoon theory

Basically- you only have so many spoons to use a day. People without disorders don't worry about spoon expenditure. People with disorders use up their spoon allowance on things like planning, hyper vigilance etc.
Eg)where non-disorder people just go for lunch with a friend and use one spoon a PTSD sufferer will use 3 spoons to just get to lunch, another 3 sitting there eating and another 3 to re-regulate once they're home.
9 spoons to do a 1 spoon job. And if you have 10 spoons a day, well, good luck. The other person just goes on their merry way. Your day, however, is over.

Anyways. My thing is. If you can use spoons there has to be a way to make spoons.

So. If you're a spoon user, how do you manage to make spoons. IE- self care. How do you make it count? Or can you at all?

really for me this comes down to, once you're brain's broken how do you best use your recharge time to actually recharge? instead of zoning out say, to some crap tv show you don't really care about? That doesn't really help you get anything else you need to do done?
 
Great thread :)

There's a post here somewhere by @shimmerz about hacking the parasympathetic. It comes to mind mostly for this quote

"Find things that cause the body to be eased. Once they are found engineer life to revolve around those things." For the rest of her post scroll down here

I saved it in my list of tools. When I do this, I function much better which I could see as having a few additional spoons.

Stuff that feeds the soul so to speak, adds fuel to your engine.

Activities of daily living as per Sideways description in this post on a Function Meter also talks about other elements of self care that maybe aren't so much feed the soul as good maintenamce.

When i do those I function better too.

Interested to see how the thread develops :)
 
I make spoons by having a good sleep routine, eating the proper foods, meditating, and spending time in nature. If I am aware that I have something stressful coming up and it will cost a lot of spoons, I try to protect/save spoons. So, in typing this I am seeing these are all ways to protect spoons. Not sure I can really "make" any. I don't know, I think for me it is about protecting the ones I have.
 
I have to walk. Now, I'm in a funk because I know I have to do this everyday. I haven't been getting all the exercise I need with the Corona virus. I've walked for 2 or 3 ( more like 3 or 4) years and my body just is just out-of-it, if I dont. So every night.. I have to walk. It certainly doesn't make up for all the exercise I am losing either, but it's super good for me. I hate the fact that I'll be a hundred years old,(at one point)and wiil have to find a way to walk.. That stinks! But that's how it is.I try to find something good on the TV.
 
I have to walk. Now, I'm in a funk because I know I have to do this everyday. I haven't been getting all the exercise I need with the Corona virus. I've walked for 2 or 3 ( more like 3 or 4) years and my body just is just out-of-it, if I dont. So every night.. I have to walk. It certainly doesn't make up for all the exercise I am losing either, but it's super good for me. I hate the fact that I'll be a hundred years old,(at one point)and wiil have to find a way to walk.. That stinks! But that's how it is.I try to find something good on the TV.

I've been using all my spoons and not doing much.....every last one of them....since surgery, concussion (lots of spoon loss with memory loss), infection, and low iron....anemia....
Just starting to feel better today...so I'm not feeling up to a major overhaul of my spoon use yet. Sometimes we use them all. But I think a plan.....schedule....is necessary to be able to keep reserves of spoons for unexpected...hence, a schedule helps make things more predictable.
Areas of my life impacted:
Energy-got to eat better and make sure I take extra iron....and additional vitamins..
Bills-I write those on the phone notes, and check them off....just paid my taxes....frustration over a missed bill is huge...I lose lots of spoons hollering at the wall.
Working towards, and achieving Accomplishments-Reaching a goal....builds up my store of spoons.
Frustration reduction-I lose the spoons when I'm frustrated....so I'm working low energy ways to accomplish goals...w/o making more work for myself....while I'm getting back on my feet from being sick. Like make 1 big dinner and have lots of leftovers.....cooking is tiresome and makes a mess in my kitchen that I don't have the energy to clean up right now.

I also fell off the exercise wagon and healthy diet wagon when the heat came because I was walking daily. More recently, I came up with a plan....
I bought an inexpensive adult mini-trampoline(low impact aerobics) with an adjustable bar to hold onto to use indoors, got a set of weights, cleaned off my stairs (it's a make shift stair climber), broke out my 10 y/o wii which has walking and other exercises on it.....converting house into a mini station gym.....different room, different activity, with loud positive music of course. Local ReStores have cheap exercise equipment, or so do Craigslist. So I thought I'd start there, and add something new each month to change it up up...keep it fresh....keep me motivated....and get back in better shape. Will report back how this is working.....in a couple weeks.

So, I can keep more spoons with a specific daily plan, because my day is more predictable. I think I make more spoons when I'm doing something I love or am with someone who validates me as a person.....I have more energy. I lose spoons sitting in bed.
 
spoons come from good sleep, good food, exercise, yoga, meditation, a good support system and grounding

So that's 7
For the day.
Screw one of those up and it's gonna be a hard day

they don't carry over to the next day -- which was a really hard thing to learn. I still struggle with it because you would think that if you take care of yourself and only spend four spoons on Day One, then Day Two you would have 9 to play with.

Nope.

I don't know where they go - but I guess I don't have a storage area :(
 
One of the ways I 'make' spoons, is to address the things that stress me into a knot of anxiety and depression. For instance, someone who just can't stop pushing their ideas or beliefs on me. (Referring to a family member).

Granted, I am 'using' spoons to figure out how to solve this problem. But knowing the outcome will be a reserve of spoons in the future. So, I have to use spoons to problem solve. Knowing that when I can solve the problem it automatically adds extra spoons to my pile because I am not using them to run in circles trying to get this person out of my life. Does that make sense?

Sort of like sometimes we have to spend money to make money. I look at some of my spoons as investments into a 'richer' future.

I'm very low on spoons for the last few months. And like you said, the ones we use just to get something done is exhausting. I rebel against 'routine'. I don't do well at all with a set time to do certain things. But I do try to eat better, get rest when I wake up knowing I'm very sad that day and unable to do more than the necessities.


I also find that communication with people who is 'stealing' my spoons is becoming very necessary. When what little energy I have is spent avoiding have a conversation with a said family member, I'm letting him steal spoons.

I'm a work in progress on this one right now. So cutting myself some slack for not being at the top of my game is important. Being mindful that most people could care less what my day is like, things like this. Paying attention to where I let my PTSDbrain take me on stupid exhausting trips into waawaa land.

This isn't very 'technical', just what works for me.
 
wish I had longer to type. I may come back to this thread because the concept was a life changer for me. If you have access to a WRAP course anywhere in your area I would recommend it highly. Wellness Recovery Action Plan. That is a great way to start. Because spoons, to me, is stuff that you love. Stuff that feeds the soul. But when jammed with PTSD symptoms it becomes really difficult to get to them. It can be done though.

@ladee makes a tremendous point as well. Learning how to get a grip on stressful stuff. Anxiety producing stuff. Stop accepting stress from your own life or from others. You will lose friends perhaps over this one. That's okay.

Really, so much of this comes down to being unaccepting of anything that is damaging to yourself. You are numero uno (extreme self care),. It's a hard line this self care thing. A tremendous boundary. Nobody gets to screw with it. No exceptions. Spoons is about not giving energy away. Looking for how to replenish energy stores. Understanding that we are energetic beings and that our energy can be stolen from us. Can leak out of us. It is a precious commodity. We need it to function and we need it to live any type of decent life.

The difficult thing is that most of us who were abused as children were taught the hard way that we were absolutely NOT ALLOWED to take care of ourselves. It was a dysfunctional belief system forced into us. Getting a therapist to help with breaking this belief system may well help. We were forced to sell ourselves out to our abusers. THEY stole our energy. They taught us that others have the right to steal our energy. They do not. We have to reclaim it back and the spoons thing allows us to see that our energy is a barterable and tradable and renewable resource. Don't hang out with people who demand your energy. No friend does that.
 
wish I had longer to type. I may come back to this thread because the concept was a life changer for me. If you have access to a WRAP course anywhere in your area I would recommend it highly. Wellness Recovery Action Plan. That is a great way to start. Because spoons, to me, is stuff that you love. Stuff that feeds the soul. But when jammed with PTSD symptoms it becomes really difficult to get to them. It can be done though.

@ladee makes a tremendous point as well. Learning how to get a grip on stressful stuff. Anxiety producing stuff. Stop accepting stress from your own life or from others. You will lose friends perhaps over this one. That's okay.

Really, so much of this comes down to being unaccepting of anything that is damaging to yourself. You are numero uno (extreme self care),. It's a hard line this self care thing. A tremendous boundary. Nobody gets to screw with it. No exceptions. Spoons is about not giving energy away. Looking for how to replenish energy stores. Understanding that we are energetic beings and that our energy can be stolen from us. Can leak out of us. It is a precious commodity. We need it to function and we need it to live any type of decent life.

The difficult thing is that most of us who were abused as children were taught the hard way that we were absolutely NOT ALLOWED to take care of ourselves. It was a dysfunctional belief system forced into us. Getting a therapist to help with breaking this belief system may well help. We were forced to sell ourselves out to our abusers. THEY stole our energy. They taught us that others have the right to steal our energy. They do not. We have to reclaim it back and the spoons thing allows us to see that our energy is a barterable and tradable and renewable resource. Don't hang out with people who demand your energy. No friend does that.

@shimmerz I'm very interested in the WRAP concept...I went to my first dopey therapist with an indepth wellness plan......and she laughed at me-I mean she howled she thought it was so funny-I wasn't amused, and I had spend a couple of days working on how to add positive to my life, cut out negative, and make new neuro connections using my senses. .....It was a good plan for where I was at the time...a total mess....it was based around finding positive things, learning new things, brain based thinking, neuroplasticity, etc......and I have become like-minded in the concept you write about. Is there a book I could read? Cutting out the negative influences and not tolerating people who hurt me....a huge piece.....and being selfish with the basics is important......this way...leaves more room for the goodness to be felt and experienced in life which equates to LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOONS-LOTS MORE POSITIVE!
 
Is there a book I could read?
I could literally feel my head rewire when I took my first WRAP course. Recovery? Everybody had said that PTSD was not something you could recover from? Why hadn't I, after seeing a million different doctors, ever even heard of the concept? WTF:::::::: I won't even get into how my life has changed. OMG.

Anyway, yes, there are books. Apparently their webmaster has shit skills, because the page (on my browser) is a disaster. As I recall there is a WRAP specifically for trauma, although I haven't seen it. I am a facilitator of their courses and they have a section in their course material that speaks directly to trauma. It is so so.

What they do a tremendous job of is putting the power back into the sufferers hands. I think it is that concept that reconfigured my head. I saw it happen with tons of other people too. You can see the 'click' in their eyes when teaching the course. It is miraculous to watch.

Anyway, here is the link:
WRAP Books

The book labeled Wellness Recovery Action Plan is the one facilitators use for students. It really describes, step by step, the process for regaining perspective. I hope this helps.
 
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