Hi there! I’m Serena Rodriguez, owner and sole therapist at Innate Authenticity PLLC. I’ve decided I want to start a blog on my website. In this first post, I just intend to give you an overview of my intent for this blog, at least in the beginning, how I plan to structure this, and why it feels important to me. So, without further ado, let’s dive in!

I’ve struggled periodically with crippling body, abdominal, and/or pelvic pain for decades. My journey with experiencing generalized body pain started in middle school. The first time I really remember experiencing unexplainable abdominal and pelvic pain was around 2006 or 2007. I don’t know for sure. That was such a long time ago, so it’s a little fuzzy to remember when it started. I have now accumulated five medical diagnoses, which have all contributed in various ways to abdominal, pelvic, and generalized body pain.

I’ve been told by friends, periodically, that I really should write and publish a memoir to share my medical experiences more widely. I mean… I do have a propensity for very long social media posts! But, I just don’t really see myself writing a book. I know one individual, who I have watched go through the journey of writing a book, and it just does not seem interesting to me… way too much work! I guess “never say never”? I also had never been drawn to blogging… but here we are!

I decided that this would be a good avenue in which to tell my story with various types of pain. I have a lot of autonomy, control, and time to structure this in whatever way I please. I do so much education and empathetic connecting with my agency and private practice therapy clients around chronic illness. I have never once tired of learning as much as I can about other people’s experiences and imparting knowledge about my experiences wherever I can. 

It’s a passion of mine to work with folks who have chronic illnesses, even if they are struggling with illnesses I do not share! (Even better if you are also large-bodied, a therapist, and/or LGBTQIA+. Shout out to my tribe!) Anyone who has struggled with chronic illness, and connected with other people who are struggling with chronic illness, can attest that there are remarkably salient thematic and experiential elements spanning all kinds of chronic illnesses.

This blog may, at some point, morph into other topics down the road. But there’s a lot for me to share about my journey with pain. The first several posts of this blog will be about that. My desire for these blog posts about my chronic illness journey is to help as many people as humanly possible to feel seen and heard, to experience some “light bulb moments”, and to identify new avenues for self-advocacy, diagnosis, and treatment.

Lowest down on the list of priorities, but still important, is the therapeutic nature of just getting my swirling thoughts and emotions out through writing. After my most recent medical diagnosis in April of 2024, I experienced an unprecedented level of relief! Shortly after, I was listening to a Private Practice Skills podcast on blogging. What felt like out of nowhere to me, maybe in large part because of the way she described her personal blogging style, that podcast episode has powerfully drawn me to this sphere, where I really want to take anyone who will listen on this journey with me. My brain has felt very soothed in the last couple of weeks knowing that there is an avenue for this journey to be shared and hopefully learned from by others. Being crippled by pain, especially at such a young age, is an experience that takes your whole being by force. For me, it feels like my mind can allow me to have a measure of peace about it if I can try to use my experience to help others.

I’ve always been an avid journaler. So as I’ve sat down to do this, it’s felt very natural for me. (Although… the vulnerability of doing this so publicly on my professional website is, admittedly, quite scary!) I think I resisted the idea of professional blogging historically simply because structuring posts in a highly academic way (“Here Are 7 Ways to…”) is just not me. I process my thoughts and feelings primarily in 2 ways, verbally and through writing. When I’m contemplating things and channeling them in one of those 2 ways, I often enjoy both the journey and the end result.

Verbal processing in communion with others is so important! I consciously put that together when I was in my Master’s program, when I finally admitted to myself how bad I was at being able to read and remember textbook content. I needed to find a balance between reading enough of the textbook content to meet coursework expectations while supplementing with other learning strategies. I observed how salient information was for me when it was part of a class discussion. My other strategy is organically letting everything flow out of me via a physical or digital document, just giving it a healthy exit point to keep it from eating up my emotional and intellectual capacity.

To align with what I know to be true about myself, with whatever topics I write about in the future beyond this initial series, it will need to be very organic and narrative-driven for me to connect with it enough to blog about it. There are definitely regular times throughout the year that I get in a state of deep contemplation about things that are coming up in the world, in my client work, or in my own life. I think those are the times that I will need to capitalize on creating a blog post. So, anyway, thank you to Dr. Marie Fang with Private Practice Skills for selling me on this style of blog before that podcast episode had even ended!

I don’t yet know how I will break up my story and title each blog post for this initial series. But in general, I do intend start with my experiences over the last 4-6 years and provide backstory to earlier times as relevant. Because I’m just getting started, I also don’t really know what level of frequency I’m planning for this blog in the long-term. I think realistically, with how busy my schedule is, that it’s unlikely I will make posts any more frequently than once every 4 weeks. There may be times, if I am needing some time to think about another topic or theme to write about, that my posts may be even more spaced out than that.

Nonetheless, since the initial content that I have planned here is just reporting out on my own experiences with chronic illness and pain, and therefore I’m not needing time to dream up content, I feel confident in making another post in 4 weeks time.

So, yeah! The stage is set, and I will see you in the next post!

Cheers and Be Well,
Serena