Use Your B.R.A.I.N

It’s a mnemonic…add your own “unfuck”

I got back from a training last week for indigenous birth workers. Froze my ass off in Spokane, wore fleecy tights under my ribbon skirt, then came back to our first central Texas heatwave and sweated my tiddies off instead.

The training was amazing and being in a room full of only indigenous women and 2s beautiful souls healed something in me that I didn’t even know needed medicine.

One of the things we covered was the acronym BRAIN (irony not lost on me). It’s designed to help a birthing person make proactive decisions about their labor experiences…and I think it had so many other uses I’m sharing it with all y’all now, rather than waiting for the right book to put it in (though you’ll see it there, too, eventually).

How can we be more proactive decision makers? By using our brains, right? Which in this case stands for.

Benefits

Risks

Alternatives

Intuition

Nothing

You deserve to make informed choices in your life, and your care with all providers should be collaborative. So if you are being moved in the direction of trying a certain medication or treatment, please **do** ask more than just “ok, why do you want me to try that?”

What benefits are you hoping I’d get? Like specifically? Maybe this antidepressant specifically targets impulsivity so we think you may get more benefit from it as a neurodiverse person. This is far more helpful than “We haven’t tried this yet and your depression is still awful.” Or whatever.

What are the risks? It takes awhile to titrate it up and titrating the old med down at the same time will cause side effects I’ll have to watch for? It can cause seizures, which may already run in your family? What else?

What are the alternatives? Maybe a nervine herb? Neurofeedback? Ketamine infusions? What else is a possibility?

What does your intuition say? Your intuition is the part of your brain taking in data and processing it outside of conscious awareness. See “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker for more on this if you’re interested. Your gut may be reacting to something that you need to listen to.

And also what if we do nothing? And I don’t mean turning up the radio because the brake pads are squealing. This doesn’t mean ignore, it means wait. What if we let this play out a little longer and see what happens? We can revisit again if things get worse and be relieved if they resolve on their own.

I can think of so many decisions I’ve made over the decades which may have been more skillful had I used these considerations and I wish this was taught in counseling programs…when we’re too busy making students use o-net and equally marginally helpful things.

What else? It’s hot here. So hot. I was cold in Washington and now I’m miserable and hot. Yes, I can’t be made happy. I’m Gen X, we’re never happy, it’s fine, it’s our culture.

Speaking of, a running joke of ratchet funeral planning with a friend (she will say to use her name with my whole chest…I protected her by not calling her out for putting peanut butter on my fry bread…but now the internet will know the audacity of Maria Primm) ended with this list:

Again, Gen X is insane…but the funerals will slap.

And here are pictures of my cat in the pillow fort she built herself.

It’s also designed for peak airflow in the room. Miss Lola Banana also enjoys her creature comforts and will report back to me on a/c needs because she’s a bougie bitch.

Take care of you. Make a nice pillow fort, carry in some snacks (cherries are in season right now!), and have a rest. Lola and I insist.

— Dr. Faith