This post will be updated irregularly to include various “Disability Metaphors” and how people have incorporated them into their lives.

If you’ve heard people saying things like ‘I’m not going to use my spoons for that’, ‘no spoons left, only knives’, or ‘if anyone has some spare spoons’, you’ve probably heard someone using Spoon Theory to describe their capacity to do something.

Spoon Theory started with Christine Misandero, who created the concept when she was talking to a friend who wanted a better understanding of Christine’s life was like, as someone with lupus. She wrote about it the conversation, and it resonated with a lot of people. Spoon Theory is now used by many people, who are disabled in many ways. Whether through a chronic illness like lupus or through mental health issues or through a lack of supports for how their body or mind works.

Some people have added to it. I particularly like the Spoon Drawer concept, where we have different types of spoons specialized for different things, and how that applies to Spoon Theory.

Some people have found that Spoon Theory wasn’t quite right for their experiences, and came up with multiple Fork Theories, D&D Spell Slot theory, the bucket analogy, and my personal favorite: Splines Theory.

For now, this page is mostly a placeholder. Here’s a more complete introduction, along with links to the essays by the people who came up with the theories, explaining them in their own words: www.bit.ly/SpoonTheory101