Selma Blair in British Vogue.Photo: Adama Jalloh
Selma Blairis opening up about what her childhood was like before she learned she had multiple sclerosis.
The 50-year-old actress — who wasdiagnosedwith the autoimmune disease in 2018 and has been inremissionsince 2021 — appeared on the May 2022 cover ofBritish Vogue, detailing how she lived for 40 years before learning she had the disease.
“If you’re a boy with those symptoms, you get an MRI. If you’re a girl, you’re called ‘crazy,'” she said.
TheCruel Intentionsstar told the outlet that as a child, she would also often wake up in the middle of the night laughing hysterically — which later turned into uncontrollable crying as an adult.
“I just thought I was a hugely emotional person,” she recalled. “I looked like a ‘normal’ girl to them, but I was Disabled this whole time.”
Selma Blair in British Vogue.Adama Jalloh
Being diagnosed with MS 40 years later, Blair admits that it can be “overwhelming” living with the constraints of her disease.
“I can be sat on the couch and then I wake up. I’ve passed out and have no idea where I am,” she explained.
Those symptoms are, in part, why she decided to hide her diagnosis — so that she could continue working.
“I was worried since the beginning of time that a glaring fault would remove me from the workforce,” Blair said. “And usually it was my incoordination or getting stuck, too weak or sick, in my trailer – or any time, really. The vomiting or body issues were terrifying, [and the] baldness or rashes.”
She added that she was terrified of being “found out.”
“I couldn’t have made a move — sometimes literally — without my allies in the Disabled community,” she says. “They blow my mind.”
source: people.com
