I Don't Have Spoons. I Have a Bucket, and You Need to Fix Your Damned Leak

They say if you have a chronic or mental illness, you get 15 spoons a day to represent your limited resources. I don’t have spoons. I have a bucket. If a building springs a leak, they put my bucket underneath it because why bother repairing it when you can just get Red to collect all the water?

My bucket can collect thousands of drips. I’m the ambitious sort. I often insist on trying to live an ordinary life despite the consequences to my health. I also say “yes” a lot.

Can you let my remodelers into my house this week? Yes.
Can you dog sit? Absolutely.
Can you take care of your own needs while doing all these favours? Not really, but that’s okay.
Can you look after my manbaby tenant? Not a problem.
Drip Yes, Drip Yes, Drip Fucking Yes.

Eventually, my bucket becomes full. From this point on, all drips will splash out onto the floor. I’m out of resources. I’m out of bucket space, so the tiles will be steeped in water. The grouting will get damp and full of mildew. The foundation will develop a slab leak.

Everything comes to a halt. I can’t house more water. My health is in the toilet, so things fall apart, and the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world*. There’s no bucket space for my workday… or cooking… or visits… or doing favours. Life is static, and people start thinking I’m malfunctioning.

And I’m not. I just let you use me as a bucket. I assumed you’d fix the leak eventually, but you didn’t. Now you’ve used up all the space I had available. Sorry. Ya shoulda fixed the pipes a year ago. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to take a nap. No, I cannot help you to fix the chaos that's ensued from your leak and my full bucket. I’m all out of resources.

As someone with a chronic illness, I shouldn’t let people use my bucket to catch leaks they should rightfully fix themselves. I should treat my bucket space as scarce. I have a limited amount of energy. I need to spend it on the day-to-day efforts that keep me alive: Work, for instance, or shopping and downtime.

I should not spend my bucket space on things healthy people should do themselves.

I had to change drugs this week. I knew it was going to be bad, so I withdrew my bucket from other people’s leaks. I told them I wouldn’t have any space, so I would require them to take care of their own responsibilities for seven or eight days.

Did they take care of their own responsibilities? No. They are healthy. I am not. They’re still trying to use this bucket when I barely have bucket space to prepare a meal.

So my bucket is out of business.

Can you let the remodelers into my house this week? Nope.
Can you dog sit? Too busy watching horror movies.
Can you look after my manbaby tenant? Teach him to take care of his own damned self.
Drip No, Drip No, Drip Fucking No.

Fix your damn leak.