About The Newsletter Between Sick & Well from Miss Molly Bell

Hi. I’m Molly.

I’m a writer, a musical theater performer, playwright, composer, and a person with a rare primary immune condition called Common Variable Immune Deficiency in which my body makes no antibodies. I also am diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder. All of this informs my work.

I read an embarrassing amount of self-help. Books, podcasts, the researchers, the monks, the neuroscientists, the ladies with journals. I love all of it. I spot the patterns fast and I go down the rabbit holes so you don’t have to. Although honestly, you should. Rabbit holes are my favorite place.

Here’s where I’m different. Most people read this stuff, nod, underline a sentence, and go back to their lives. I don’t have that option. If I only think about the ideas and never do them, I get sick. Literally. So I do them. I read, I think, I move, I reflect, and then I take the action. Every day. Not because I’m disciplined. Because I’m motivated by consequences.

This is a newsletter about living in the middle. That’s where I am most days. Not fully sick, not fully well. I spent years waiting to land on one side and I’ve stopped waiting. Turns out the middle is where the interesting stuff happens.

So that’s what you’ll find here. Self-help, road-tested on a body with other plans. Essays about what I’m trying. Rabbit holes worth falling into. The occasional song, because I can’t help it.

One thing before you subscribe. This is not a support group. It’s a rehearsal room. I have real diagnoses, mental and physical, and they talk to each other constantly. I take them seriously. But we don’t do sympathy here. We do growth. If you’re sick, or stuck, or 50, or all three, and you want to get better at being alive anyway, come in. You’re my people.

I’m so glad you’re here.

Molly

My Story

I’ve spent years performing, mothering, and navigating near-daily illness, something I’ve lived with since my late teens, when my immune system first began to fail. That looks like 20+ years of pneumonias, probably over 100 ear infections (I’ve lost count), extreme tonsillitis until I finally had them out, an endless parade of sickness, sometimes low-level and manageable, often debilitating, four lost pregnancies that eventually led me to my two incredible kids, and performing at a high level as a regional (meaning not NYC) professional musical theater actress through all of it.

My 40s brought a reckoning. A two-year hypomanic episode that eventually led to hospitalization, a Bipolar II diagnosis, significant weight loss, and a level of burnout that felt like a full unraveling. Not just of energy, but of meaning.

I needed to heal. Badly.

I began three years of intensive therapy, working through the trauma of being chronically ill and, for so long, feeling invisible inside it.

They say you can have it all, just not all at the same time. That’s felt true in my life. I’ve built a creative, portfolio career across many roles: producing, teaching dance and voice, directing, choreographing, composing, writing and publishing three musicals, and working as a playwright.

Now, I’m shifting. I’m moving away from one-on-one coaching and building an online creative home, where I can share what I’ve learned, support others, and continue to bring my work into the world in a more sustainable way.

My illness continues to evolve as I get older (I’m turning 50 in a couple months), and I’m learning to take care of myself while staying connected to my work. I don’t intend to stop performing, but I do know I’ll need to be more flexible, and to build a life and career that can hold both my creativity and my body.

All my life, I’ve felt a calling to create. I’m drawn to work that feels meaningful, work that can live alongside an ever-changing body, rather than in spite of it.

I am, at my core, an ambitious artist. Broadway has always been the dream, the kind that lives in your chest from childhood and never fully lets go. But I am too sick for that life. The grind of it, the relentlessness, the way it asks everything of your body, would break mine.

I've had to find another way to honor what lives in me, not by shrinking the ambition, but by re-imagining where it goes. I write often about the trappings of fame, the allure of it, the mythology we build around it. I've always been drawn to that world. And I've always known, quietly, that it would kill me.

I live in the heart of Silicon Valley with my husband Kurt, my high school sweetheart, our two teenage children, and our Australian Labradoodle, Brooklyn and a 14 year old shih zhu Nina. We recently celebrated 25 years of marriage, and after the loss of Kurt’s father, we inherited his childhood home.

We’re now preparing to move back to our hometown, where we first met, and are using this moment as an opportunity to reset, remodeling and creating a home life that feels grounded, intentional, and aligned with our values.

I continue to work as an actress on stage and a playwright and composer off stage. It’s a wonderful life, surrounded by often miserable illness. I explore this dichotomy and the fertile creative space that lives between them. To be alive is to face your fears, celebrate them, and step into the moment.

It feels like a full-circle moment, and a meaningful season of renewal.

My Website is Here

My Instagram is Here

A small confession: I have a tendency to launch things too big and then quickly get overwhelmed. If you’ve seen my show Molly Bell’s Hysterical, you already know this about me. So this space is intentionally evolving, and I’m giving myself permission to figure it out slowly. For now, everything here is free.

Down the road, I’m planning to bring some new offerings online. I’m designing dance classes built for my new body, and hopefully useful for yours too. I’m also exploring ways to share my vocal coaching approach, a method I’ve developed over 25 years of working as both a fitness instructor and vocal coach, one that weaves movement and singing together in a way that I haven’t seen done quite like this anywhere else.

But that’s down the road. For now, I’m here, showing up, and taking my time.

In the meantime, if something here moves you, please share it, leave a ♥️, and recommend this space to someone who might need it. On Substack, that kind of support means everything, and it's how this little corner of the internet grows. And please, comment! Just know that comments are open to subscribers only. I had a real, live, in-person troll experience, and I've set up guardrails accordingly. Some lessons you only need to learn once.

In love and creativity,

Molly

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