For several decades, Selma Blair felt like no one could understand, let alone diagnose, her pain.
The 51-year-old actress, who announced her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2018, says she’s been subjected to prejudicial treatment from an early age. In an interview with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press,” Blair confirmed a doctor once suggested that she get a boyfriend to deal with her issues. “I just cried. I had no capability to process,” she said of receiving that recommendation.
“What am I supposed to do with this information? I knew the pain was real. I thought it was, but I did start to convince myself, ‘You’re overly sensitive. There’s nothing wrong with you. Get it together, you lazy, lazy whatever,'” she said of the self-doubt she developed.
SELMA BLAIR’S MS BATTLE HINDERED HER HOLLYWOOD SUCCESS: ‘I COULDN’T EARN MONEY’
Selma Blair says she “just cried” when a doctor suggested she get a boyfriend to deal with the pain she was experiencing from her undiagnosed MS. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)
The “Cruel Intentions” actress says her health problems started young. “I had very clear signs at that time. I had optical neuritis as a child, which really is only from brain trauma or MS, and yet, they didn’t recognize it in me, even though I was seeking doctors my entire childhood.”
“I had a fever of 101 [degrees] for five years, you know. It just never went away. I had CAT scans. I didn’t have bladder function… I mean I spent my entire childhood on high antibiotics until I developed anaphylaxis like all of them. And yet it was just like, ‘Oh this dramatic girl.’”
“So that became my character and I’d blame myself. So I had a lot of medical trauma,” she elaborated.
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Selma Blair says she’s suffered severe medical trauma since childhood. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Glamour)
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As her pain persisted, doctors continued to be dismissive. “When I was older there was so much medical trauma of always seeking. And doctors, really, they’re taking advantage of that time or really just not seeing me, and it was a gender bias,” she explained.
“There would be a boy in my grade that would go in for the exact same chronic headache and fever, and he is, you know, in surgery and [given] a MRI within the week. I was never given an MRI even though I always had headaches and [a] fever, and balance [problems], or my leg didn’t work. But they just said, ‘Oh, it’s just dramatic.'”
Selma Blair is often accompanied by her service dog while out in public. (Getty Images)
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Today, Blair is still trying to find her way. She suffers from spasmodic dysphonia, a disorder related to MS that affects her speech, and often walks with a cane and service animal, although she is in remission.
“The period from 3 [years old] until about five years ago was hell on earth for me,” she admitted of life since having a diagnosis. “And I’m not saying I had a horrible life. But the amount of discomfort, disbelief from kids at school, all the doctors, I couldn’t trust myself. They were saying, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you.'”
