Self Care Tips for Spoonies

Most people have some sort of routine when they wake up in the morning and another one when they go to bed at night. For an able-bodied neurotypical, it might look something like this:
  1. Shower
  2. Get dressed
  3. Make and eat breakfast
  4. Brush teeth
for the morning and then something like this:
  1. Set out stuff for the morning
  2. Put away anything you used today
  3. Brush teeth
But for many people, whether they have a chronic illness or a disability or a mental illness, these steps are too big. I know I'm supposed to brush my teeth twice a day. I know I'm supposed to eat more than just cereal when I'm left to fend for myself. I know that I should shower every day and change my sheets every two weeks. But I have a certain amount of energy to use every day. When I wake up in the morning, I'm far too tired to shower or make myself real food, and I forget to brush my teeth and sometimes even to take my meds. When I come home at night, I've used up most of my energy and I rarely have enough to shower or brush my teeth. I know this is the case for some of my friends and many strangers, so I decided to share some of the things that get me through the day.

"Rapid Mac Cooker"

This was originally a present to my sister from my parents when she went off to college; they figured she wouldn't have a kitchen in her dorm, but she would have access to microwaves. This is a specific dish with instructions on how to make boxed mac 'n' cheese in the microwave rather than a pot. It's not only helpful to people who don't have access to a kitchen, though--ever since my mom taught me how to use it, I've had a way to make myself some real (or at least somewhat real) food and avoid having cereal three times a day.

Sugar Free Chewing Gum

Gum is a must for any of us who don't have the energy to brush our teeth. It may not be best to chew it while you're about to go to bed, but if you pop some in your mouth after a meal, it'll help you avoid cavities without having to go through the trouble of going to the bathroom, turning on the sink, putting toothpaste on your toothbrush, etc.--for abled people, it doesn't seem like so many steps. But for us it's a hassle, and it's so much easier to chew gum. It still takes energy to chew it, but I know in my personal experience that most of the time chewing gum is a pretty absent-minded thing, and it's usually easier to me than chewing food. Besides, none of these alternatives take no energy, the point is to use less.

Keep Medications By Your Bed

The biggest deal when I need to go to bed is taking my meds. My nighttime meds are very important, so if I stop taking them I could die (or worse), but they're also very dangerous so if I stop taking them for a day or two and get back on them at the same dose I could overdose and also die. But some nights it's just so hard to get up because I didn't properly manage my spoons and ran out earlier than expected. The best solution to this is putting my pill organizer on my bedside table, where I can reach them without having to get up. That way, I don't have to use more energy than I have, but I also, you know... don't die.

Easy-to-Open Water Bottles

I can open bottles, but sometimes it takes a lot of energy that I don't have, especially when I wake up in the middle of the night and need water. So the water bottle that I keep on my nightstand is one of those with a straw you can flip up--it won't spill all over the floor if I knock it over in my sleep, but I don't have to twist the top off to drink from it. This is even more helpful for people with some specific disabilities that restrict motor control or movement, because for some people, opening bottles with twist caps is always difficult, or even impossible.

Don't Use Conditioner

Conditioner is often used after shampoo in the shower to make your hair softer and silkier. It's good for the health of your hair, but it also makes it easier for your hair to get greasy again. If you clean your hair with shampoo and don't condition it afterwards, it'll take longer before your hair is visibly greasy. Besides, the grease that your hair will accumulate without showering will make up for the conditioner you didn't use to moisturize your hair and keep it healthy. This is only worth mentioning if you have a hard time taking showers, however, because if you shower every day your hair won't get greasy even with conditioner and you need the conditioner to prevent stripping your hair of nutrients by washing it so often.

Spare Clothing

This isn't much of an option for those of us without much money, but if you have enough money to buy some extra clothing and not enough energy to do laundry as much as you need it, it may help to make sure you have some spare socks and underwear. Then, if you ever have to go a while without clean laundry, even if you have to rewear some of the outer garments, you'll at least feel a little cleaner.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Stuff

So, as I said in my welcome post, I'm a jack of all trades. This doesn't mean I can do everything, but I do a lot of stuff and I'm pretty good at some of it if I do say so myself. Right now I'm the lead in a play, and I'd tell you more about that in hopes that you'd come see it but that would require y'all to be in my area, and I doubt that's the case. Unless I end up sharing this on Facebook, but I've already talked about the play on Facebook. So yeah, no point in talking about it here. But I am a singer/songwriter. So far I only have three songs out on the internet, and I haven't gotten anything professionally recorded, but I hope to soon. My YouTube has a bunch of covers and all of my original songs that I've put out there so far. This month I'm going to post a bunch of covers for Pride, but I won't end the month with an original because, surprisingly enough as a queer trans man, I don't have any songs related to me being qu...
Read more

Realism When Writing About Aliens

Note: to avoid having to explain myself every time I use a big word and potentially boring readers who already know it, this time I've started using footnotes. If you don't know a word and there's a number next to it, the footnotes will either have a definition/explanation or a link to something that explains it better than I can. I also use footnotes for sources. There's still a great amount of debate among most people about whether or not there are life forms on planets other than ours. Sometimes this theory is shot down as unrealistic altogether, especially when it comes to intelligent life forms. Most evidence to disprove the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life is within the categories of "we haven't found life on any of the other planets in our solar system" or "we've never been contacted by aliens." But the universe is a lot bigger than most people realize. The furthest distance that we can see is about 46 billion lightyea...
Read more

The Effect of Male Privilege on Trans People

So, as a trans guy who didn't come out until I was 14, I was raised in the same way that a cis girl would be. My transfeminine friends, in their late teens, who still aren't out to everyone, were raised like boys. This is messed up, because everyone should be raised the same regardless of gender or agab (assigned gender at birth), but we weren't and kids still aren't. If you ask a TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist), trans women have male privilege until they come out as trans, and trans men don't. To a certain degree, they're correct, but that in no way means that trans women are privileged over trans men, and especially not over cis women. The thing is, my friends were raised with what most people would call male privilege. They were never sexualized or objectified, they were never told what they can or can't be, and they were able to walk places by themselves once they reached a certain age without fear of being harassed, assaulted, or murdered....
Read more