What’s in a name?

[Image description: four silver teaspooons with curved handles}

[Image description: four silver teaspooons with curved handles}

“Dazzling Spoons Counseling—I think I like the name, but what does it mean?” You’re definitely not the first person to wonder.

The “spoons” part comes from the spoon theory, created by Christine Miserandino. She tells the story of needing to explain what it’s like living with a chronic illness—how some days you have more energy, and other days it takes all you’ve got just to get out of bed and the thought of taking a shower is laughable. When she was explaining this to her friend, the only visual aid she had available was some spoons on a table, and thus the spoon theory was born.

{Image description: a dazzle of zebras standing on a dirt road, with one zebra facing the camera. There are trees on each side of the road and a dark, cloudy sky above.]

{Image description: a dazzle of zebras standing on a dirt road, with one zebra facing the camera. There are trees on each side of the road and a dark, cloudy sky above.]

In medical school, doctors are taught that “when you hear hoofbeats, think horses and not zebras.” But as anyone with rare or complex medical conditions knows, sometimes it is zebras! So the zebra is the symbol used to represent the rare-disease community, and a group of zebras is called a dazzle.