what is spoon and fork theory? sorry if this is a stupid question

theentropywe:

That’s not a stupid question 🙂

To put it simply, spoon theory is an analogy that helps describe how people with chronic pain can’t be as active as people without it. The idea is that every activity costs spoons. Making a simple meal costs 3 spoons, showering costs 7, doing hair and makeup costs 10, etc. An able bodied person may start their day with 100 spoons and so they are fine to spend them on daily tasks without thinking. If you wake up with 20 spoons because of chronic pain, you have to ration them much more carefully because you can’t add spoons throughout the day. What you see is what you get.

Fork theory is similar but for mental health. With fork theory you CAN get forks back but you have to pay forks upfront. Say you wake up on a really bad day and you only have 5 forks. If you take a shower, you’ll get 10 forks back. You know you will. Those forks are there just ready to be taken. However, a shower costs seven forks and you only have five. Even though you know the shower will make you feel better, you don’t have enough forks to make it happen and so you don’t shower. -Wyn