Reticulating Splines vs Spoon Theory

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The way I've explained sensory overload in the spoon theory is that loud noises, bright lights, flashing lights, etc. steal all my spoons.

Wow. Reading that article was timely for me.

I was in the process of applying for the Affordable Care act by phone with the help of a navigator yesterday. She had helped me fill in a paper application before I began so I would have all of the information in front of me, or so we thought. The man on the line began asking questions we had not prepared for. I couldn't quickly grasp the full implications of replying one way or the other. The things he was saying became fragmented in my mind, as if his sentences had been cut apart and pieces of them were reaching my brain at different rates and had to be pieced together. I began stuttering and became tearful. The navigator was great and took over for me as soon as she saw me floundering and even offered to let me retire to a quite place for a few minutes to regain my composure before we continued.

The whole process rather left me feeling humiliated, as I've held down jobs that required thinking fast while on the phone with clients. All of the way home I was asking myself what went wrong in this particular situation that had me melting down so quickly and unexpectedly. It makes sense to examine the fact that at work, I was the knowledgeable one in the conversation, in the groove of a familiar process and armed with scripts. In this case, there was no way for me to be fully prepared. I was already frustrated, intimidated and feeling vulnerable as the conversation began. I simply could not download the full framework needed for this task in the time allowed.

re above: not to mention there was a clock loudly ticking on my left and a copy machine inexplicably creaking and groaning like a ship's rigging on my right.

I liked it. I found spoon theory useful when I first read of it, but way too simple. The "changing mental gears" part is a very real problem I run into, it takes me some time and effort to move from doing one activity to another, and sometimes that effort leads to me procrastinating so I don't have to do it (but once I get on a roll, I stay on a roll) I'll be keeping that article in mind.

I'd never heard of the spoon theory, but I can relate to that, though the reticulated splines theory does seem to fit me much more.

I love the new ways people are finding to apply the metaphor to themselves. I love the computer running slow or freezing angle as a description of a shutdown or meltdown. Someone on twitter today was talking about not being able to just Alt-Tab, and I pointed out I can alt-tab as long as it's quickly, to a small program that doesn't require re-rendering.

Someone else was saying they couldn't multitask, and I remembered how Windows computers of olden times didn't technically multitask -- they multithreaded, meaning that technically only one thing was processing at once, but it made it look like things were all going on at a time by managing multiple threads and using swap files and memory buffers.

Another interesting piece of feedback: Two people on Twitter who could relate said they had ADHD DXes, but not Aspergers. So either they are misdiagnosed, or they have autism *and* ADHD, or there are similarities in autistic and ADHD brains. I also had an ADHD diagnosis prior to this year. So I don't know the real answer, but it's interesting to think about.

Post is a bit long, so I'll have to read it over the weekend to give myself time to absorb it.

I just wanted to say the artist who made that picture of reticulating splines, captures very well my mind when I'm trying to get to sleep. Very well done.

Here is a post from a few years ago where people are discussing the spoon theory and other analogies:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt73361.html
I particularly like the glass of water analogy that AngelUndercover uses.

You describe well the mental process of loading and unloading "stuff" into memory in order to do, or undo jobs.

I find your descriptions work well without the words reticulating or spline. Because these are foreign words with an unfamiliar meaning, they are therefore not recognised as meaningful. I guess it's a sub-routine I haven’t yet written to process and understand that datum. I find the words distract rather than aid in understanding.

Small cramped office room is also a good metaphor for switching tasks, but reticulating splines is fun to say and visualize and it fits in so well with spoon theory.

Every time I see this thread I think of The Sims 2 starting up. I never knew what that actually meant.

Maxis started business with Sim-Ant. Which was very popular. According to wiki, they ported the original Sim-city from the commodor 64 platform. I loved Sim-city. I've got a freeware copy but someone has changed a couple things and it just doesn't feel the same. I would love to find a true copy of the original.

I always thought, and am still leaning toward, the explanation that reticulating splines is applying the river or shoreline spline curve function to the land terrain. I looked up the word reticulating and it doesn't fit my description, but its stuck in my head now as having that meaning. Which is probably the main reason Spoons or Rooms makes more sense to me than reticulating splines.