alt-country comeback kid

MOLLY. | she/her | | marieltee.wixsite.com/mollytrull | | singer/songwriter, musician, sick sense of humor. tv show addict, huge nerd. | | tourette's since age 4 = never a dull moment | | lyme disease since 2009 (woo summer camp counseloring in the missouri countryside! diseases galore!) | life's mottos: | tics and ticks can suck it | | if i didn't laugh i'd cry | | you can't make this shit up | | talk to me. i'll talk back |

[xxmolls]

Time for a pinned post! Hi! I'm Molly (technically Mariel, but my nickname has been Molly since before I was born!). she/her, in my 30's, Missouri (US).

I am a singer/songwriter, though when I was 19 and hellbent on making that my career, I got sick with late stage neurological lyme disease. My health has been a dumpster fire since then, and I spent basically all of my 20's on-and-off bedridden (You can follow that SUPER fun journey under the tag health ramble -- I have had this tumblr since I was 19 so we have gone through a lot of shit together). When I turned 30, after getting treatment for MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome), I finally started to get my life back. I have been diagnosed with Tourette's since I was 4. That has added an interesting dimension into my "medical mystery," which tends to fascinate (and befuddle) doctors AND ALSO keeps things somewhat entertaining day to day. I find a lot of humor in my tics (though sometimes they can be pretty debilitating!). I worked at a summer camp for kids with Tourette Syndrome for 4 years, so I love meeting and chatting with fellow ticcers and consider myself an advocate. I have recently begun writing kind of personal essays that explain inspirations for songs I wrote and connect them to what was going on in my life (and often my health shitshow) at the time. I've been tagging those with My Writing if you are interested in reading (or blacklisting). I recorded an album of original (mostly Americana) songs years ago. You can listen to that on Spotify at Molly Trull - "Nothing Is Enough" It's available on basically every streaming / music service you can think of (including youtube). Just search my name and the album title (Nothing Is Enough). My bandcamp is here if you want to buy and download the mp3s to own.

Some of the songs on the album are literally songs I wrote in high school, just to warn you. I feel like I have outgrown them a bit. I am still proud of my songs, though, and I think the album doesn’t sound too bad.

I have an old soundcloud account where I have uploaded some of the songs from my album as well as some home demos, and some covers I have done. You can find that here I post a lot of music that I love to listen to and that has inspired my own songwriting. You can find all that at my music tag.

I write about my family a lot because we have a lot of family lore and frequent shenanigans. You can find those posts under the tag my flamboyantly dysfunctional family

I watch a lot of tv. I am involved in several fandoms. I am a gigantic fucking nerd. Find my tv fandom-y posts under tv

I love my dogs and post pics of them a lot because I think they are super cute and ridiculous. Find those furry idiots (affectionate) under my dogs

Thank you for reading this monstrosity of a pinned post, and feel free to send me an ask anytime! I love making new friends.

xo

Molly

[xxmolls]

sploot

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sploot

[xxmolls]

this is the face of a dog who just encountered a cat for the first time.

she had NO idea what to think of it… poor girl froze, stared at the kitty in a neighbor’s driveway for a few long minutes, and then abruptly turned around and hauled ass back home

[xxmolls]

I'm sorry... what is Bofa?

I'm afraid I do not know.

[luntfontanne]

man fuck you tracy letts moodboard

[xxmolls]

Jewish grandma problems…

I’m about to go to visit my beloved Grandma in upstate NY because next month is her birthday and she’s literally turning 100 years old (!!!!).

She’s still living independently, still driving, still insisting on always taking the stairs and never the elevator, still sharp as a tack and stubborn as hell.

So with all my food allergies + recent alpha gal diagnosis…. I am going to have to make all my own food for the week I’m visiting her. I have to be super careful about what I eat and how it’s cooked.

I told her I want to do an online grocery order for the day I get there and have them deliver it to her apartment so I’ll have food as soon as I get there. I have to only get certain products / brands, mostly fresh produce, and look carefully at every single ingredient in everything.

I would never put that on anyone. Even if they offered and are willing to get me food, it’s a pain in the ass AND honestly I can’t afford to go into anaphylaxis from eating something with an ingredient I can’t have.

Well my 100 year old Jewish Grandma is INSISTING I let her go grocery shopping for me before I get there.

I could not get her to budge on letting me order groceries online, so I planned to give her a small list of easy things to get, and then I’d order the rest online without her permission and just let her be pissed at me.

Well she saw through that immediately and is questioning how I could only want to eat a few vegetables and eggs, and what will I use to cook it in (I was planning to order my favorite olive oil online… it’s like $13 for a big bottle and she’d shit a brick about that), etc. She wants to know what am I going to eat for breakfast??? Lunch???? Dinner????

I’m not going to ask my 100 year old grandmother to get a huge ass list of very specific, often expensive groceries. She HATES when I pull the “you’re 100 and my grandmother so I’d never do that to you or I’d be a horrible granddaughter / person” card but what the hell, man.

I’m going to have to end up putting my foot down for my own health (and for hers as well honestly) and just tell her I don’t want to take any chances with my allergies, and play up how I don’t trust anyone but myself with this task so it’s not personal… but she’s going to be so pissed at me and go into Jewish Grandma mode x 10000. I’m gonna feel so bad about it.

She also is cheap as hell (grew up in the Bronx as the child of immigrants and then raised my mom and uncles as basically a single mom working as a secretary) and would get super pissed and shame me for how expensive some of the food I am getting is (even though there’s no way to avoid that with some of my restrictions) even though she’s lived so incredibly frugally her whole life and squirreled away / invested her money very well, so I know her finances and I know at age frickin 100 she can definitely afford to chill out and live more comfortably, treat herself a little more. Not that I’d let her pay for my food (even though she’s gonna insist), but I don’t want her to see the prices because she will start Jewish grandmothering me about how I spend too much money on unnecessary things (food that won’t kill me?!).

Anyway… I love her DEARLY. She is my favorite person, which I fear may be conceited to say because I was named after her and we are incredibly similar. We are super close, but yeah we definitely bicker a lot and we are both stubborn assholes and very set in our ways.

If y’all have Jewish grandmothers … maybe you can relate. I’m gonna have to fight her and her Jewish grandmother instincts pretty fiercely on this trip (and I’m gonna have to do it without bringing up that’s she’s 100 FREAKING YEARS OLD).

Grandma needs to chill TF out (will never happen).

Wish me luck I guess. She may murder me.

[xxmolls]

G-d keeps sending ticks to kill me but he hasn’t succeeded yet (in fact I just turned another year older a day after pulling another tick off me)

I’m a mess but I’m awake and out of bed after spending all of my birthday bedridden so surviving on pure spite is still working for me I guess 🖕

time to adopt a pet opossum

Collecting tick borne illnesses like Pokemon (have had at least 4 now)

I also have tics so…

[xxmolls]

I pulled another tick off me last night 😭 I woke up suddenly feeling itchy all over and was having trouble breathing, and then I found the tick on my stomach, already attached to me.

Tick bites can make my alpha gal worse, so I suspect my allergies are all jacked up now.

I’m so sick of these fuckers. They’re literally ruining my life.

[xxmolls]

my sister just adopted a dog from the same rescue I got my dog from!

poor thing is so scared, but she’s so sweet and chill and already warming up to our other dogs (her new pack!) and my sister and fam

she’s a tiny little lady! only 8 pounds!

my sister wanted a dog who looked a lot like her old dog, Frankie because she misses him so much… so we freaked out when the rescue posted her for adoption because she looks so much like Frankie it’s eerie.

still trying to think of a name for her… my sister was considering Scottie (since she was a kid she’s always wanted a “Scottie dog”) until her douchebag boyfriend said he didn’t like that, and then she started considering Elsie to which I responded “wait what is with this Pete Davidson theme?!” so now she’s trying to think of a better name

(this is the same sister who named one of our foster dogs Adderall when she was 13)

any name suggestions, tumblr fam?

[xxmolls]

fun fact: my dog keeps randomly walking on her back legs, and it’s slightlyyyyy creepy as hell… goblin dog behavior

[pansy2025]

goo goo dolls if they were in dune: and i don’t want the worm to see me

[xxmolls]

I have been so noticeably better the past week since getting my alpha gal diagnosis and cutting mammal products out of my diet. It’s like I’ve emerged out of this horrible heavy fog, and am re-entering the world of the living again.

I’ve seen and reached out to friends I haven’t been able to hang out with in a couple of years. My tics are manageable, and I have so much more energy. I feel like I’ve gotten my brain back. I’ve just been so happy and grateful to be alive and functional, everyone around me is noticing.

My dad was saying to me how he’s noticed I’m suddenly like a whole new person, like I used to be even, he’s noticed how much better I’ve been feeling in the past week. I started describing to him just how much better I am feeling, and how hopeful I’ve finally gotten because I had totally lost hope right before this diagnosis, and my dad literally started crying.

He told me that he has hated seeing me struggle so much, and that he knows I have gone through so much shit with my health. He told me I have handled it so well, and that I am his hero, and that he is so overjoyed that I am finally feeling better. That he couldn’t even put into words how happy it made him.

It was so sweet of him and felt really good to hear. I have been really talkative the past week because I’ve gone from my brain being so slowed down to suddenly being at its normal neurodivergent hyperspeed. I’m also used to always being asleep and in bed, just absolutely miserable, so now that I am out of bed and around people again I’ve found I have so much to say. I’m constantly singing to myself and talking to people.

I worried it may annoy my parents (who I currently live with) because literally everyone in my family has misophonia and is very sensitive to noise, but my parents have reassured me that it just makes them so happy that I am feeling better and engaging with the world again.

I’m hopeful I can move back into my own apartment soon. I have already started thinking about part time jobs to start. I have recording time already paid for at a local studio that I want to use to record some demos of my new songs.

A week ago I would never have even dreamed any of this would be possible. It’s so unbelievable to me how quickly my life has turned around with a simple diagnosis and diet change.

Oh, and it’s my birthday in a few days (June 1st). Before, I assumed I’d be asleep in bed on my birthday. But now maybe I can do something fun? That’s so wild to me, but it makes me so happy.

[xxmolls]

Someone climbed in the blanket bin.

It literally disgusts me how cute she is.

[xxmolls]

My mom’s friend has started referring to my alpha gal diagnosis as alpha BITCH and I kinda love that … Like if I were a drag queen that would totally be my drag name: “Alpha Bitch Syndrome”

[mrgaretcarter]

— Hacks 5x09

[xxmolls]

I have felt so much better after a week of avoiding mammal products (just got diagnosed with alpha gal syndrome a week ago!). It seriously feels like a miracle. I was so hopeless and ready to give up. All my doctors had said they couldn’t help me anymore. One suggested the Mayo Clinic and I had to remind her that she had tried to refer me a couple of years ago and the Mayo Clinic had said they could not help me. Turns out I have been in anaphylaxis for 2 straight years!

Even though I knew I had MCAS and was very careful about what I ate, I didn’t realize I had become allergic to all mammal products too. I thought butter was a safe food of mine, and used it to cook every day. I also ate a lot of cheese, thinking it didn’t set off my reactions. I didn’t realize I was getting delayed reactions because of alpha gal.

Anyway, I feel better than I have in years now! I finally feel hope for my future again.

And I live in Missouri, which is the epicenter of alpha gal currently. I know so many people in my hometown who have alpha gal now. Entire families. When I shared that I had been diagnosed, so many of my friends and community members reached out to share that they had recently been diagnosed too, and offered support and recipes.

One of the local grocery stores is becoming alpha gal friendly, and another local grocery store has a sign at the door that you can scan that has a list of every single product in the store that is alpha gal friendly. We also have an alpha gal friendly restaurant opening here this summer.

It’s so incredibly prevalent here. It sucks so bad. It’s kind of terrifying how common it’s gotten here in my region. It’s only going to get worse as time goes on, and spread to more states. I hate ticks so much.

Anyway, I have been having some trouble thinking of meals to make that adhere to my various dietary restrictions due to my MCAS (can’t have gluten, tomatoes, nuts, most fruit, etc etc) and new alpha gal diagnosis. I have a LOT of restrictions. But I’m pretty proud of the dinner I threw together tonight:

Polenta dipped in egg and cornstarch and fried in a pan, scrambled eggs from the leftover eggs that I dipped the polenta in, mushrooms + onion + garlic cooked in olive oil and white wine, then some roasted broccoli with lemon juice. Tasted so good!

I’ve also done some chicken meatballs with rice, sautéed zucchini, and a sauce made of sweet chili sauce and mayonnaise. But yeah I’m quickly running out of ideas.

It’s so worth it though. The difference in how I feel this week vs. last week has been huge. I was even able to hang out with friends tonight and play guitar with a family friend last night too. I would not have been able to do either of those things just a week ago. I feel like a whole new person.