Selma Blair opens up exclusively to Us Weekly about motherhood, life with MS, the medical treatment she credits with saving her life and finding love again
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00:00Since my diagnosis to now, living my best life is what I've had to do because what's
00:27the alternative?
00:28I think with the diagnosis of MS, I was set free in a lot of ways because I believed I
00:34had a very different personality and kind of pain level that I believed was in my mind.
00:44So I made a lot more sense to me when I was diagnosed with MS and then I made a lot more
00:49sense to my ability to talk a lot when I became kind of an advocate or kind of a middle man
00:57for people with disabilities and people who don't understand or just need a little attagirl.
01:03I've been living my best life just trying to see beautiful things with beautiful people,
01:11doing beautiful, going to beautiful places.
01:13I mean, when the world is kind of dark, you have to, you have to go and find the beautiful
01:20things.
01:22Looking back, telling myself six years ago, I think I was almost, I was so devastated
01:27when none of the disease modifiers worked for me because my mother, even before she
01:32died, she's like, oh, MS, it's no big deal now because there's so many more treatments.
01:37That wasn't the case for me.
01:39So I was really excited.
01:40Like, wow, I'm going to feel so much better.
01:43And then there was, it was just everything I did made my symptoms worse.
01:48Every treatment worsened the effects and worsened my health.
01:52So when I went to that bone marrow transplant, I would tell myself, it's okay that it's going
01:57to take years to feel better.
01:59It's okay because one day you will be 52 and you will feel better and you will sit in front
02:05of this camera doing an interview talking about how far you've come.
02:10And I want that to be for other people too, because I didn't think it after I was diagnosed.
02:15After I did the bone marrow transplant, not diagnosed, I thought, okay, we're going to
02:19get this under control.
02:21And it is and it isn't.
02:22Like, I'm great and I'm not progressing, but some days are definitely really hard and I
02:28wonder about working and, you know, I'm a single mom supporting my kid and I want to
02:35have a great life for us.
02:37So I think that gets in our brain for anyone recovering, like we have to hurry this recovery
02:43up because I got to get back, you know, and I just say, it's okay.
02:47You're being lovingly guided.
02:48Things will come in their time.
02:50You just have to keep showing up.
02:51Given everything I've gone through, especially the sadness turning around, I believe in miracles
02:58because I believe that was a human character trait that I was eternally grieving and that
03:04would never change.
03:05I was sure of it.
03:06No matter how much I didn't drink, I'd always be miserable because I'm sad.
03:12You know, that was the story I always told myself that felt real, but I'm not sad.
03:20I mean, I'm sad by things and I'll always admit it, but I love this life.
03:26I mean, what's the alternative?
03:27I have to live it.
03:31I think my challenges that I used humor a lot more for in the beginning seemed very
03:38big.
03:39It was a little more demonstratively, my voice was harder to communicate or walking sometimes.
03:48I mean my balance and I have like vertigo out of nowhere.
03:53So I'd like scream out of nowhere and I just, I had to have really kind of quick responses
03:58for that.
04:00So I'd always look to Christina for some good one-liner, talk about someone who like doesn't
04:06give a lot of Fs.
04:07You know, she's pretty good, tough about that.
04:10You have to have humor through everything or else it would just be true.
04:13I don't know why.
04:14I mean, every day there's something that still gets me, but it's hard for me.
04:20You know, the thing that gives me all my serenity really is horseback riding or playing with
04:25my kid.
04:26And those are exhausting things for me now.
04:28You know, it's hard for me to be in the sunshine without an ice vest on.
04:31I get like inflammation that causes trouble.
04:35So just the act of relaxing and getting exercise are really tough for me.
04:41So I stay in all day, usually indoors until the sun goes down and I'm on a power plate
04:46inside for circulation.
04:48And I'm reading other people's funny books because, you know, sometimes you just got
04:53to get through it.
04:54Oh gosh, being a mother has been everything to me or else I don't know if I would have
04:59just had the energy to bother.
05:02It's too hard.
05:03I'm upside down.
05:05How do you keep going?
05:06But if you're a mother, there's just absolutely no way I would give up on him, his future,
05:14trying to make my, you know, to show him like, like with help, with people caring about us,
05:20we can do our best work.
05:22And he cares.
05:23He also cares that I would buy him like a sarong.
05:27So sarong, if you're out there, send my, you know, just kidding.
05:30I got him a sarong for his birthday.
05:32So now I'm a scared mother on a motocross kid.