Fatigue is kicking my ass today. I have zero spoons, and all of the forks. So let's talk
about energy theories.
[Upbeat intro music]
[Max yawning silently] As you can tell I'm
tired. But it's more than just tired. Every person on YouTube that has a chronic illness
will at some point talk about the spoon theory, and I'm not gonna try and tell you mine's
better, but I am gonna mention it. I suffer with chronic fatigue, I, to my knowledge,
do not have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I do not have ME, but I do struggle with chronic
fatigue as a symptom. It's just I struggle with fatigue on a daily basis, not as part
of its own syndrome, but something else probably going on. I feel like I've just given up with
all of the trying to pinpoint which bits come from where. I struggle. This is all I've done
today. Please excuse any mess that you can or can't see behind me. I- yeah. The spoon
theory was put forward by Christina Miserandino... I think. I liked her name so I think most
of it has stuck in my head. And I will put a link down in the description about her...
blog post I think, about it, but to sum up, we use spoons as a metaphor for energy. I'm
going to use candy canes because they're close to my head and I barely have to move. Let's
pretend these are spoons. For example, in a day, you have however many spoons this is.
This is seven spoons, ok. Seven fake spoons. Brain... work please. So to get up and get
breakfast is a spoon. To go and sit at my desk and work for an hour, another spoon.
To go out to the cats and look after them, two spoons. And that's all before lunch time
and I have three spoons left. And two of those will go to looking after kittens again, and
then there's one spoon left to do something else. That's on possibly a normal day, maybe
a day where the fatigue is kind of there, more than others- I think I do have more than
7 spoons. I have more than that on a regular day to day, but I guess 7 spoons is probably
like a day where maybe I didn't sleep so well the night before, so I can still function,
and do some stuff, but less than normal. Today I think I woke up with half a spoon, completely.
And then I had to go look after the cats which was 2 spoons, and now I can barely move. Physically
fatigued so my, even just moving these candy canes around and holding onto them is taking
way more of an effort than it should. And to move the rest of my body? Everything just
feels like lead, trying to move through more lead. I just don't- there is not much moving
going on today. But I thought I would tell you about the energy theories because I've
mentioned spoons before. So I did a video about easy spoonie meals that you can make
and eat when you are feeling possibly like this. I will put a link up there, but not
everybody knows what the spoon theory is, so I have just explained that. But another
theory that I like that works to describe energy for chronically ill people and- the
spoon theory and this- the fork theory, they can both be used by people with physical chronic
illnesses, mental illnesses, uh hearing loss as well, that's where this one comes particuarly
useful, um, autism, ADHD, any sort of neurodivergence, physical divergence, disability, all of it.
So the fork theory is that- I use it a lot to describe overwhelm and the fatigue that
comes from being overwhelmed compared to having no energy. So the fork theory is if- you can
cope with a certain amount of forks in your back. It's kind of painful, it's not ideal,
but you can- you can cope with it, but if one more fork goes into your back, you will
completely lose it. And I find this theory to be useful when I have listening fatigue,
so if I've been listening to people and lipreading people all day, I can't- or if I'm at a party,
and everybody's talking at once that can get quite overwhelming so if there is one more
fork, so if somebody starts yelling and it drowns out every body else, that is the last
fork in my back and I don't do so well. There are lots more energy theories used by the
chronic illness community because not everybody likes the spoon theory, not everybody knows
about the fork theory, I am sure there is a knife theory somewhere. Some other people
use uh life points, some people use um, battery percentages or bars of battery like on phones,
um... any way that you can sort of relate to energy, but I know that the spoon theory
caught on really well, and the fork theory caught on enough that I've heard about it,
I don't know about general popularity but I know what that is. It's very useful for
anxiety and as I've said hearing loss, the- the- um, Cool, brain just lost the end of
that sentence but it- it's- they have different uses so I use the spoon theory for more like
fatigue stuff and the fork theory for overwhelm. So if you're chronically ill I would like
to know what energy theory you use if not the spoon theory, and if you use the spoon
theory also let me know too down in the comments below. And while you're there don't forget
to like this video because I feel like poop and I know that editing this is going to be
so much fun and [sigh] this felt like the best way to capture my chronic fatigue. It
didn't feel right to do it when I was bubbly. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button
too, and then, because YouTube, ring that notification bell as well so you get notified
every single time I post a new video... Something about an outro*, I post on Saturdays, and then
once a month I post another video, it could be anything. God knows what it's gonna be
this week. OH! Yes. That's a thing that I meant to say. It's coming up to the Ouch Mouse
channel birthday, February 9th was my first YouTube video so let's take that as the channel
birthday. For this month's bonus video I want to do a Q&A, so if you have any questions
at all, put them in the comments below, it doesn't have to be about chronic illness,
it doesn't have to be about Cold Urticaria, hearing loss, gay stuff, it can be anything
you've ever wanted to know and I shall answer them. Um, maybe it will be a live stream,
that's why you should click that bell so you know- I don't know. All of my social media
links are down in the description below as well as a link to Ko-Fi if you want to support
me in any way financially, all of the links to that are down in the description below
always, and I will post on them if I decide to go live, I will try and give you a week's
notice uh, I don't know where I'll be is my issue. I'm tired. I feel dead. So I'm going
to go now because I don't want editing Max to kill me. Anyway. Do all that like and subscribe
stuff and I will see you in the next video. Bye!