Selma Blair opens up about the ‘tears’ and ‘relief’ of her MS diagnosis originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
Selma Blair opened up about her battle with multiple sclerosis and how she remains positive even on her darkest days, saying, “I never thought I’d have such riches and that I’d have to be so vulnerable and accepted.”
Despite dealing with a flare-up of the disease that affected her speech, the “Cruel Intentions” actress said she was “very happy” to be able to show “what being in the middle of an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis is like” in an exclusive interview with “Good Morning America”‘s Robin Roberts.
Blair, 46, didn’t let her diagnosis stop her from walking the red carpet last Sunday night — with the aid of a bedazzled cane — during the Vanity Fair Oscars after-party.
Blair told Roberts that she is currently doing “very well.”
PHOTO: Selma Blair attends the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Feb. 24, 2019, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Daniele Venturelli/WireImage/Getty Images)
MS is a chronic, often unpredictable disease of the central nervous system, and can cause problems with vision, balance and muscle control. During her interview with “GMA,” Blair was in an “exacerbation” of MS, or an attack that causes new symptoms or the worsening of existing symptoms.
“It is interesting to put it out there, to be here to say, ‘This is what my particular case looks like right now,'” she said.
Diagnosis brought ‘tears,’ but also ‘relief’
The “Legally Blonde” actress, who is also a mother to her 7-year-old son, Arthur, shocked fans last October when she posted a heartfelt message on Instagram about her MS diagnosis three months earlier.
When she first found out she had the disease, Blair admitted she “cried.”
“I had tears,” she said. “They weren’t tears of panic. They were tears of knowing I now had to give in to a body that had loss of control.”
“There was some relief in that,” she added. “Cause ever since my son was born, I was in an MS flare-up and didn’t know, and I was giving it everything to seem normal.”
PHOTO: Selma Blair on ‘The Gong Show,’ May 20, 2018. (Richard Cartwright/ABC via Getty Images)
(MORE: Selma Blair walks the Vanity Fair Oscar party red carpet with a cane after multiple sclerosis diagnosis)
Blair said that prior to her diagnosis, she was “self-medicating” and “drinking.”
“I was in pain. I wasn’t always drinking, but there were times when I couldn’t take it, and I was really struggling with how am I going get by in life,” she added.
Blair said that she was not being “taken seriously by doctors,” some of whom she said told her that she was just a “single mother” or “exhausted” or even “hormonal.”
“I dropped my son off at school a mile away and before I got home I’d have to pull over and take a nap. And I was ashamed,” Blair said.
“I was doing the best I could, and I was a great mother. But it was killing me,” she added. “So when I got the diagnosis I cried with some relief. Like, ‘Oh, good, I’ll be able to do something.'”
How she told her son about the disease
Blair also opened up about the moment she told her son about her disease.
“I always want him to feel safe, never responsible for me,” she said. “But he had already seen that I was falling and doing things.”
She adds that she tried to keep a smile about it and was “always laughing,” and that her young son would imitate her dropping things on occasion.
“I’d be like, ‘That’s fine. But don’t do that out of the house. People will think you’re a jerk,'” she said.
(MORE: Selma Blair opens up about the ‘truth’ of life with MS: ‘It’s not easy. That’s OK’)
“So I did have to tell him after the MRI. I said, ‘I have something called multiple sclerosis,'” she recalled. “And he almost cried and said, ‘Will it kill you?'”
“And I said, ‘No. I mean, we never know what kills us, Arthur. But this is not the doctor telling me I’m dying,'” she said. “And he was like, ‘Oh, okay,’ and that was it.”
How she stays positive and inspired
Blair said one source of inspiration for her is fellow actor Michael J. Fox, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991.
The actress said she reached out to him via email prior to her diagnosis, even though she didn’t know him, because she wondered if she too could have Parkinson’s.
“I said, ‘I don’t know who to tell, but I am dropping things. I doing strange things. I have a tremor. My pinky won’t stop moving. My leg, I can’t feel. It’s bouncing.'”
Blair admired how in spite of his health problems, he was “still working” and “talks about” his struggles.
During her most difficult days, Blair said what keeps her going is the people she surrounds herself with.
“I have three of the dearest people with me all the time, plus my son,” she said. “I never thought I’d have such riches and that I’d have to be so vulnerable and accepted.”
“It’s keeping me alive, no pressure to them,” she quipped. “So rude of me, but the truth is they have been.”
People — as well as sleep, she added, are what helps her.
“Also, I have to go to bed. That’s just the truth. I’m going to do as much as I can,” she said. “But I have to put my brain in recovery. I have to reset my attitude sometimes.”
PHOTO: Selma Blair is seen in Los Angeles, Oct. 14, 2018. (Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images)
Blair added that doctors have told her that her “prognosis is strangely amazing.”
“I’m very symptomatic. I have an aggressive MS,” she said. “But the doctor I saw … He said within a year I could have — at the time he said 90 percent of my abilities back.”
“He’s very hopeful and he’s not in the business of giving false hope,” she added. “And he told me, ‘Fake it till I make it.'”
“He said I’m at a crucial time,” Blair said. “And I need to smile and I need to get the positivity to believe.”
Blair admitted that she was “a little scared of talking” during her flare-up, but that her neurologist encouraged her to speak out and “bring a lot of awareness” to the disease.
“No one has the energy to talk when they’re in … flare-up,” the actress said, quipping: “But I do ’cause I love a camera.”