Your phone rings. Heart spikes. Just like that, your energy is drained before you even pick up the phone. This is probably a very relatable scenario to you if you happen to be an autistic person reading this post. It's a very common scenario that occurs with family members, friends, and co-workers. The sudden alert and sounds from a call or even a text message can be immediately draining, and I can definitely relatable it is for me as well. That brings up the question, why do phone calls take so many spoons compared to texting?
To get the obvious stuff out of the way, for us, they are immediately unpredictable the vast majority of the time. You simply don't know most of the time the other person on the line is going to call you, so when it does happen, it's not only very draining but also could bring us out of our routine, which could be only handling important tasks or the simple nature of stimming. This is one of the few reasons why phone calls are hard for autistic people.
This is often called ‘autism phone anxiety,’ though really, it’s less about anxiety in the neurotypical sense and more about how unpredictable, high-demand calls drain spoons.
The processing load, as well as pressure to pick up and handle the phone conversation as soon as possible, is very spoon-draining (or energy-draining, if you prefer) as well, since as soon as you pick up the phone you have to decode the tone of voice, words, and social cues in real time, which is obviously something we often struggle with on a daily basis.
This added to the fact of the unpredictability I mentioned earlier can drain your mental energy (or spoons) in a matter of minutes, which can make navigating through the rest of the day very daunting, and tasks that you could likely do with relative ease earlier are a lot more difficult because of that one unexpected phone call.
And most notably, the stakes, just like an in-person conversation, are a lot higher on us since someone is actively waiting for our response in the end and subconsciously and consciously judging these social cues and tones of voice from us as well, often leading us to mask and appear more "typical," much to the detriment of our mental health. :(
Texting on its own can also be draining in certain scenarios, but compared to phone calls, it is definitely way less draining since there's a lot of sensory work to do and uphold on our end when talking to someone.
Not every single person on the spectrum solely prefers text messages, but some definitely do. The reason for this is that there can be less back and forth with text messages. You can simply handle most of everything you would properly send with the person you're talking to through 1 phone call, and then your job is done for the most part.
Having the control, especially with co-workers, friends, family members, etc., to have a preference for this and for the preference to actually be respected can make both phone calls and text messages less daunting, even though there can be a bit of drainage involved, mentally.
In short, communication that saves spoons isn’t about avoiding people—it’s about respecting energy. And we deal with these scenarios all the time, so being aware of these tips that can help us reserve as many as possible can help us out a lot mentally and not deal with burnout or shutdowns because of phone calls or texts.
This is also the philosophy I’m using in building Spoons, my energy tracking app—fast, simple, and designed to respect your energy. Our energy in a world at times that is clearly very difficult for us.
I truly hope that this helps you a lot! Even if it's just a little bit, that really makes me feel happy. :) Thanks for reading!
