Selma Blair 'cried with relief' after MS diagnosis

Selma Blair is opening up about living with an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis.

Days before celebrating her return to the red carpet at the Vanity Fair Oscar party, Blair sat down for an interview with “Good Morning America” to publicly discuss her MS diagnosis.

“I am doing very well,” the 46-year-old “Legally Blonde” star told GMA host Robin Roberts. “I am very happy to see you. Being able to just put out what being in the middle of an aggressive form of Multiple sclerosis is like. So my speech, I have spasmodic dysphonia right now. … It is interesting to be here to say this is what my particular case looks like right now.”

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Blair revealed the diagnosis came after years of seeking help from numerous doctors, who couldn’t find the cause of her symptoms.

“I had tears,” Blair said of the moment she learned she had MS. “They weren’t tears of panic, they were tears of knowing that I now had to give in to a body that had loss of control and there was some relief in that.”

The actress said her symptoms had been occurring for years, going back to the birth of her son Arthur, now 7.

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“I was in an MS flare-up and didn’t know and I was giving it everything to seem normal,” she said. “I was self medicating when he was with me. I was drinking and 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 to get by in life.”

Blair said despite seeking help, she was “never taken seriously by doctors” who blamed her symptoms on her busy life as a single mom.

“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,” she recalled. “I was ashamed and I was doing the best I can. I was a great mother but it was killing me. And so when I got the diagnosis, I cried with relief.”

Prior to receiving her diagnosis, Blair reached out to actor Michael J. Fox, who has been open about living with Parkinson’s disease for nearly 30 years.

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“I said, ‘I don’t know who to tell, I’m dropping things, I’m doing strange things,” Blair said. “He got in touch with me… He gives me hope.”

When it came time to tell her son about her diagnosis, Blair said relaying the news “wasn’t difficult at all.”

“I always want him to feel safe and never responsible for me,” she explained. “He had already seen that I was falling and doing things and I was always laughing.”

Blair said although her son was initially afraid, he has learned that sometimes she needs to take a day off and rest.

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“You can’t do it all, it’s fine to feel really crappy,” she said. “My son gets it and now I’ve learned to not feel guilty at all.”

Moving forward, doctors have told Blair that she can potentially regain 90 per cent of her abilities.

“I was a little scared of talking,” she admitted. “Even my neurologist said, ‘No this will bring a lot of awareness because no one has a lot of energy to talk when they’re in a flare up.’ But I do,” she said, before adding jokingly, “Because I love a camera.”

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