SPOONIES AND ADHD

So, you’ve probably heard the spoonie analogy that explains that some people with life long medical conditions and disabilities have a limited amount of energy to use on a day-to-day basis. I thought that ADHD has a similar effect on us too. I had a draft explaining that some spoons seem to go missing or we find extra spoons for certain tasks that we find engaging etc. Then I thought I’d give it a quick google search to see if anyone else had this idea and, bingo, I came across this “spikey spoon draw” analogy that explains it in a lot better way than I did.

https://neurodivergentinsights.com/blog/the-neurodivergent-spoon-drawer-spoon-theory-for-adhders-and-autists#:~:text=When%20it%20comes%20to%20spoons,to%20evenly%20distribute%20our%20energy.

That being said it doesn’t explain how the two types affect each other.  In the blog post linked it explains that rather than having spoons for a day, they have spoons to assign to different types of tasks, like hygiene, work tasks, social interactions etc.

We disabled spoonies are well aware that we have 1 major “section” to assign spoons to. Our health, things that keep us alive. So, this can be limiting in itself not to mention if the treatment drains you in anyway. Now-a-days I’m mostly on tablets and a couple of nebs on my E-nebuliser (this is a small silent, thankfully totally silent, portable nebuliser) but when I was younger, I would have an old nebuliser a large loud humming machine that would take at least 15 minutes and an all-important spoon to wake myself up again after.

Now, we know we’re meant to put a lot of our spoons in that section but a lot of people with ADHD also have problems in delegating our spoons appropriately. On top of that we may also suffer from the out of sight out of mind (or in some cases we forget it exists) and time blindness. So, we may have the best intention with our spoons they just accidently spend them elsewhere. I have had issues with the out of site side of things so I place important meds in places I know I will be in my day-to-day routine. For example, I placed my Kaftrio at my bedside and my morning dose next to my neb. (My neb dose it next to my milk so I get it when I make a scandishake, that I take my Kaftrio with. See it get complicated fast, and while I’m very adept at random changes to my routine. Sometimes it can be thrown off at even the smallest of changes. Thankfully that’s rare in the morning but my midday neb can be a trouble sometimes unless I have a reminder, or I have time after work to relax).

This could be why it took so long to diagnose my ADHD because my CF required me to find solutions to my ADHD symptoms.

I think there has been occasions. Where this necessity for giving spoons to a specific area is horrible be it when you wish was could be social, but you used your spoons on household tasks or medication, or you had planned something for weeks and now you simply don’t have the energy.

People will experience being a spoonie when it comes to mental health too, looking at these last two aspects of health it isn’t hard to see how people with mental health issues or bouts of low mental health will be limited with their energy too.

I can see how someone with anxiety will have to spend more spoons on things. I only recently learned that someone I knew had/ has social anxiety. I personally didn’t notice as when we first started talking on our weekly video calls, she explained that when she’s nervous she will tend to talk a mile a minute and to let her know if I needed her to slow down because of her accent (she didn’t know at the time I had binge watched Derry Girls and never had a problem understanding her). In this instance it seems like she knew it would take an extra spoon to talk with me and accidently used an extra two, giving her this fast talking “side effect”. Maybe why near the end and she felt more comfortable around me, she knew exactly how many spoons she needed and slowed down. I think a lot of us have this talk fast when we’re anxious, I do it too but looking back with an ADHD viewpoint I used to talk fast (and a lot) all the time, so I masked it from a young age and even enjoy the rush of feeling nervous in some instances. (I get nervous when public speaking and meeting new people, but I’ve learned to associate it with positive situations). I did replace the fast talking, however, with chin stoke and I would always need a soft drink in my hand. Something she picked up on quite quickly but seemed to like. Apparently when I apologised for touching my chin, she said its fine and that I had “good hands” not sure what that means but I’ll always take a compliment.

This brings be to another horrible result of having limited spoons. Dealing with depression. Again, I’m very fortunate not to have experienced clinical depression (maybe. This is something I’m looking into because depression is far beyond and nuance than feeling “really really sad or hopeless”).

Anyway, during the first few weeks I was depressed I hardly ate and or slept. I was using my spoons on just getting through the day and trying anything to ignore the pain. I didn’t think about eating, not choosing not to eat. I simply had no appetite to remind me. Sleep was a puzzling too, I felt sleepy I just couldn’t turn my mind off to sleep. That’s the ADHD, I now know. I didn’t do any of this consciously; it was more like I was a ghost (no sleep, no hunger, just floating around aimlessly, just existing. Empty. (This sounds like a good analogy for a short story)).

After a random religious experience, I got some relief from that. I was eating and sleeping again but the pain was still there. This is where the spoon limit came a hindrance again. Now I was present again. Out of my ghost state, I had to deal with living… or surviving. I just wanted to spend my spoons on taking my mind off. We’ll at that point I didn’t want to end things I just wanted to skip to when I will feel better again. But my CF wouldn’t let me just go through the motions.

I was waking up at 5 in the morning like I had for months (happy to do so) but rather than preserve my spoons I had no choice but to spend them on taking my meds and eating just to survive. I felt so trapped literally just existing so I could exist the next day. The spoons were just a reminder.

Please seek help if you’re feeling depressed. Ideally from a professional, they can and will help. Or if you just need someone to talk to, I’m easy to contact.

On a positive note, ADHD came as a hindrance and an advantage. While looking for a distraction I managed to hyperfocus on my Uni work and did 2 months of readying, essays, and online lectures in 2 weeks. This had bit me in the butt because after that I had nothing to do. The flat was spotless, my work as done, we were still under lockdown restrictions, so I was limited there. I remember I ended up feeding and trying to befriend a stray cat that I noticed when obsessively waiting for the mailman to deliver her last letter.