On a recent episode of NBC’s Meet the Press, Selma Blair discussed the “unbearable pain” she experienced prior to being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2018. The Cruel Intentions actor also shared that a doctor once told her she needed to get a boyfriend when she sought help for the pain.
After that experience, Blair told Kristen Welker she “just cried.” She explained, “I had no capability to process. ‘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.’ “
The Sweetest Thing actor said she has “so much medical trauma” as the result of experiences like these. “It was a gender bias, a lot of it, because there would be a boy in my grade that would go in for the exact same chronic headache and fever, and he is in surgery and an MRI within the week,” she said.
“I was never given an MRI even though I always had headaches and fevers and balance problems. But they just said, ‘Oh, just dramatic,’ ” Blair added.