Many times, I’ve heard phrases like, “You can’t pour from an empty cup,” or “Take care of yourself so you can take care of others.” Naturally, many in helping professions can empathize with this sentiment, and some may have even offered this advice to colleagues. While these phrases are well-intentioned and often appropriate, I’ve found in my graduate and professional life that this advice misses the mark. It has become a blanket statement that deserves reconsideration.
My Journey
Some might ask: what is the harm in encouraging someone to care for themselves so they can show up as their best self at work? In some cases, there is no harm. However, as a full-time professional and part-time Ph.D. student, I have learned over the past five years that generalized advice about sustainable mental health practices is just that: a generalization. And generalizations rarely account for the complexity of lived experience.
In 2018, I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and through years of therapy and intentional healing, I came to understand that my experience aligns with complex PTSD (C-PTSD). Healing is not a linear process with a clear endpoint. Instead, it is an ongoing negotiation of what it means to live in what I call “C-PTSD recovery.”
In 2021, as a first-year graduate student in my M.Ed. program, I was hopeful that colleagues in my assistantships, internships, and classrooms would be accepting of my invisible disability when I felt strong enough to disclose it. Instead, I encountered an unexpected level of resistance. In a helping profession, I had not anticipated that my disability would be overlooked unless I advocated relentlessly for myself.
Questions from Others
The question, “What can I do to support you?” often evokes mixed emotions. The first time a supervisor asked me this, I responded candidly: “I’m still learning how to function with these symptoms myself. . .I’m not Google. Supporting me requires understanding what it means to live with this disability.”
Years later, my response has evolved. I now value this question and welcome it from colleagues, supervisors, and even students. What has changed is not just my perspective, but my acceptance that my needs and processes in the workplace will likely differ from those without PTSD or other mental health challenges.
As a para-professional graduate student, I learned the importance of requesting reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), particularly Title I, which protects employees from discrimination based on disability. However, the process itself often presents systemic barriers. In the five years since completing my undergraduate degree, I cannot recall a single instance where requesting accommodations felt seamless or truly supportive. Instead, it often felt like bureaucratic compliance, just paperwork that enabled me to function at a baseline level comparable to those without disabilities, rather than empowering me to thrive.
Even now, I encounter questions about my accommodations that feel judgmental. I am periodically asked to provide private medical documentation, despite the chronic nature of my condition, and I hear colleagues question how I have received what they perceive as “special privileges.” These experiences reveal a deeper issue: a lack of understanding about what equitable support actually looks like.
Helpful Theories
What is most difficult to articulate is the variability of my day-to-day experience. Christine Miserandino’s “Spoon Theory” (2003) offers a powerful framework for understanding chronic illness and energy limitations. She describes starting each day with a limited number of “spoons,” which represent units of energy. Everyday tasks such as getting dressed, attending meetings, engaging socially require spoons, and the number needed fluctuates based on one’s physical or mental state. Once the spoons are gone, they are gone.
This is the crux of the issue. We live in a fast-paced, highly demanding society that assumes consistency in energy, output, and capacity. Through frameworks like Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (1979), I have found validation in understanding how multiple environmental layers interact to shape my experience with C-PTSD. Some triggers are predictable; many are not. Like anyone else, I cannot always forecast my capacity for each day.
This reality became especially clear after returning from ACPA 26, where I served on the Equity & Inclusion team for Convention Planning. For over a year, our work focused on creating an experience accessible and affirming for all attendees. During the conference, I attended sessions centered on the theme “Be More Anchored,” and I realized something profound: I had not anchored myself. I was navigating each day with few or no “spoons,” wondering why my symptoms persisted despite my arduous efforts to manage them.
Shortly thereafter, I came across others identifying as “spoonies” and was introduced more formally to Spoon Theory. While I had long recognized fluctuations in my energy, I struggled to communicate this experience in a way others could understand. Previously, I relied on clinical language. Terms like sympathetic nervous system, window of tolerance, hyperarousal, and hypoarousal. These concepts took years of personal work to grasp. How, then, could I expect colleagues, supervisors, or students to fully understand my needs through this lens? Spoon Theory gave me a shared language. A language that is simple, accessible, and humanizing. It shifted the conversation from abstract clinical explanations to something tangible: energy as finite, variable, and deeply personal.
Conclusion
The problem is not the intention behind phrases like, “You can’t pour from an empty cup,” it is the assumption that everyone’s “cup” functions the same way. For individuals navigating chronic illness or mental health conditions, energy is not simply depleted and replenished through self-care rituals; it is unpredictable, uneven, and often influenced by factors beyond personal control. If helping professions are truly committed to care, then we must move beyond generalized advice and toward individualized understanding. This means listening more closely, questioning assumptions about productivity and wellness, and embracing frameworks, like Spoon Theory, that make invisible experiences visible. Supporting others is not about reminding them to refill their cup; it is about recognizing that, for some, the cup itself operates differently, so as helpers, educators, and advocates, let’s adjust our expectations and systems accordingly within our sphere of influence.
Discussion Questions
1.) What other frameworks can professionals use to describe their energy or advocate for sustainable mental health practices?
2.) For supervisors of employees who have disclosed that they have an individual identity, what can you do to mitigate stressors that come along with the request for reasonable accommodations process?
3.) What other systemic barriers or instances of ableism show up in higher education in regard to an invisible disability?
Author Biography
Serenity Marie Wolf, M.Ed. is a first-generation college graduate with a B.A. Environmental Studies and English from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and an M.Ed. Counselor Education (Student Affairs) from Clemson University. She currently works full-time as the Associate Director for Scholarship Programs in the Clemson Honors College while pursuing her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership part-time. Her research interests are in undergraduate STEM motivation and achievement perceptions with a particular focus on underrepresented student populations and an intersection of experiential learning. Outside of school and work, Serenity enjoys spending time in nature, watching true crime documentaries, and cuddling her service-trained shih-tzu, Oakley.