Ever get the feeling one day, or perhaps multiple days consecutively, that your mental energy is deeply depleted or perhaps even nonexistent? If you too, like me, are on the spectrum, this can absolutely be relatable for you and a lot of people. It can make daily functioning for mental and even physical-related tasks that are dependent on mental well-being (such as doing chores) far more difficult than for the average person.
For autistic people, every interaction requires conscious processing. We don't automatically filter sensory input or social cues—we manually process everything, which burns through spoons at 2-3x the neurotypical rate.
This can easily tie to spoon theory, which surprisingly not everyone is aware of, and how it can also strongly tie to the energy reserves of a neurodivergent individual and how certain and very common scenarios are to be depleted significantly faster than others.
The concept of spoon theory, in simple terms was related to Christine Miserandino's coining of the term, where she explains what it's like to have a chronic invisible illness, and how her "spoons" was described as a limited amount of resources to perform certain tasks, even basic ones
This means, for example, if you have a walking disability that causes strong and very noticeable amounts of pain when a certain joint is applied pressure when pivoting off the floor, for instance, this can be physically and mentally draining, causing the individual to consume far more spoons than the average person who doesn't normally face these issues.
You can think of it as, how draining is a certain task, and how many 'spoons' will it consume for me? Let's say, for instance, you normally start the day with 15 spoons, but your job as a lawnmower is often quite difficult due to lingering and chronic pain you often face not just on the job but in day-to-day life. If 15 spoons are, to put things simply, "100%" that you started the day with, engaging in that certain task for multiple hours or even 1 hour during that day could easily consume half or most of your spoons due to how physically and mentally draining it is to navigate around the world in such discomfort. Even mild pain and non-disorder-related issues could consume a plentiful amount of 'spoons' as well! Such as...
You can think of your spoons amount as an energy meter! Not everyday the moment you wake up will be the 100% (15 Spoons instead of 15); it could easily be 75% (9 Spoons instead of 15) or even 25% in extreme cases (4 Spoons instead of 15). It can depend on certain factors that could be in or out of your control, such as
With all of this being said, how does this tie to being autistic?
If you are also neurodivergent and happen to stumble upon this post, this can definitely be relatable to the vast majority of you, as constantly navigating certain factors that are not properly in place, comfortable, or accommodating for us can make the 'spoons' we have, and the one that we start with, very low even at the moment you wake up!
An alarm, for instance, which is often loud and mentally stimulating, can be uncomfortable easily due to how loud it is and how long it can go on for before having to reach for the stop button in order to turn it off, and especially in the morning, navigating through this, especially as a neurodivergent person, can be more difficult than most people perceive it to be. There's also a plentiful amount of factors that are often out of your control that you simply cannot plan or accommodate for, such as a...
If you also happen to be neurodivergent, this is likely a problem you face more often than not. It can make you feel quite sad, as you feel as if you have no control over your situation, which in return leads to most, if not all, of your spoons being drained on a daily basis, and even starting the day with very little, making tasks that normally seemed very easy to complete far more difficult than they ever deserve to be.
This is something I often face in my day-to-day life. My spoons, in most cases, in my personal opinion, are quite low, as navigating social gymnastics as an autistic person is already very difficult on its own, but also at work, in extreme cases, which happened more often than not, I was (and still, to an extent, currently am) being labor-shared/moved from department to department 6-8 times per day in a 10-hour shift at my warehouse job, which has happened constantly the 3 days that I have worked there, making every day very daunting and unpredictable, and I never get a solid structure on what to expect. Just constant inconsideration and unaccountability
This often leads to meltdowns or shutdowns, which is a very common term in the autistic community, where your desire to talk or even navigate with the world around you is immediately disrupted and you desire right away to put yourself in a more comfortable situation to avoid suddenly letting it all out. If this ever happens to you or has happened before, please **do not** feel bad! It is a clear sign that your limits have been pushed, and you simply desire to make yourself comfortable in way you see fit
I'm sure if you're reading this, you too probably face scenarios like this that are likely either different or strongly relatable, and I strongly relate with you as such. You shouldn't have to find such lengthy workarounds just to feel comfortable in your day-to-day life in an environment that in most cases won't and likely will **never** accommodate you fully. But, there are some things that I can personally suggest you can do to better optimize your situation, even if your environment and individuals around you refuse to do so, either intentionally or not.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, there will likely never be a scenario where an environment will fully accommodate us to every single degree imaginable, but what we can do is do our best to accommodate ourselves and hope that the people around us can be better informed as well on just how stimulating these environments can be (especially from a neurodivergent point of view) and that the scenario that we do inevitably have to face can minimize how much energy it consumes from us, and we can live a better quality of life!
Thank you so much for reading!
