Speaker 1: What do you do when life doesn't go according to
Speaker 1: plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question. Now, what what title do you wear now?
Speaker 1: With pride?
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it is.
Speaker 1: Kind and only a truly deeply kind person would adopt
Speaker 1: dog with one eye AM name him Wink.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, thank you. I loved Wink. Wink is
Speaker 2: still my soul dog.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing you with Wink and thinking how cool
Speaker 1: that somebody is like that.
Speaker 3: It was my first lesson in like disability and turning
Speaker 3: it us ahead to be like kind of a strange.
Speaker 3: I just seriously, I know that sounds so silly, but
Speaker 3: it was like people at the time were really freaked
Speaker 3: out by this one. I dog like I'd see reactions.
Speaker 1: We were outside at a restaurant and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: Someunma was just so happy. And then you were like,
Speaker 1: I see the dog you go this is Wink And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I couldn't love you more.
Speaker 1: I was like, of course his name is Wank.
Speaker 2: Thank you. You know.
Speaker 3: Gammero del Toro even named a character Wink and hell
Speaker 3: Boy two, so it inspired the greats.
Speaker 2: Guamo Brooke liked it.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Selma Blair. She's a brilliant actor,
Speaker 1: a mom, an advocate, and an author. She's also remarkably
Speaker 1: kind and self reflective, traits that are rare in life
Speaker 1: and even more so in Hollywood. Selma's had a long
Speaker 1: career on both stage and screen, which has been marked
Speaker 1: by blockbuster success in films like Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde,
Speaker 1: and a Hellboy. In twenty eighteen, she announced that she
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with MS, which was a disease that she
Speaker 1: had unknowingly struggled with for many years, and since then
Speaker 1: she's chronicled her experience in her documentary Introducing Selma Blair.
Speaker 1: She's participated in Dancing with the Stars and She's penned
Speaker 1: her book Mean Baby, which is one of the best
Speaker 1: memoirs I've ever read. I'm really thrilled that she agreed
Speaker 1: to do this show. Here is Selma Blair.
Speaker 2: Hi, Oh god, dear Brookshoes.
Speaker 1: Is that my book? How long have you had the
Speaker 1: Brook Book? That's crazy?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, but yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 2: You that Oh my god.
Speaker 3: No, it had like a library card saying it's mine.
Speaker 3: And I wrote Selma Blair because I knew one day
Speaker 3: I would be Selma Blair, not Blair Blow. It's the
Speaker 3: Brook Book and it was put out in nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 3: and I got it, you know, at about that age.
Speaker 2: I was born in seventy two, and.
Speaker 3: It was it has photographs of you and they're all
Speaker 3: obviously unbelievably beautiful, and it's like, you know, a little
Speaker 3: documentary book. And it was so precious to me. And
Speaker 3: I didn't have many things, truly. I only had a
Speaker 3: couple of things. Had a book, Grease, the movie this,
Speaker 3: you know, there were a couple of things that I had.
Speaker 1: Did your mom buy you that book?
Speaker 3: Yes, she bought me this book, and she encouraged me
Speaker 3: to be okay with your You're going to love this book,
Speaker 3: to be okay with you know my face that you know,
Speaker 3: my straight brown hair, I want to blonde, and you know,
Speaker 3: beautiful eyebrows like yours.
Speaker 2: And flat chest.
Speaker 3: There was a picture of you in the Scuola book
Speaker 3: and you're a child, and so of course you have
Speaker 3: a flat chest. So but I was encouraged because my
Speaker 3: flat chest stayed a really long time, in fact to
Speaker 3: this day. But anyhow, while for you later on, you know,
Speaker 3: it has all these different things, for me, it was
Speaker 3: such a pure way to look at the body and
Speaker 3: be proud of you, just as you are, flat chested,
Speaker 3: a child whatever, with broad shoulders. So to me, your whole,
Speaker 3: your whole picture brought about the only self love, honestly,
Speaker 3: I could feel about my body because I was so
Speaker 3: detached from it too, because I was so busy living
Speaker 3: up to a mean baby that could be cleverly mean.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's interesting because when you talk about
Speaker 1: labels being sticky, and you say labels are sticky, and
Speaker 1: you know, we start with our mothers. Oh that's my
Speaker 1: athletic one, Oh that's my arty one, and we don't
Speaker 1: think that they have an affect, but they actually can
Speaker 1: really have an enduring kind of affect on a person
Speaker 1: on the way they go forwar forward in the world.
Speaker 3: Right, it seems unavoidable almost, you know. It is just
Speaker 3: a thing that parents probably do all the time. But yes,
Speaker 3: my mom had a vision for me to be you
Speaker 3: or Gwyneth Peltrow type of thing. Your mom had a
Speaker 3: big it really was. She was like, just get tall
Speaker 3: and beautiful. But anyhow, you had you having this documentary
Speaker 3: come out, and I did watch it because of course
Speaker 3: I'm still a brook you know, like fandom queen.
Speaker 2: But it was amazing this.
Speaker 3: I mean, you already born pretty, so it was a
Speaker 3: self fulfilling prophecy no matter what.
Speaker 2: Like that you were pretty baby, and that stuck with you.
Speaker 2: Did it bother you when you were little? Like did
Speaker 2: you notice it?
Speaker 1: What it did was it detached me entirely from my body.
Speaker 1: It detached me from my face. Wow, And it just
Speaker 1: meant I was nothing but that, And so I became
Speaker 1: vigilant in nurturing everything else that wasn't connected to looking
Speaker 1: a certain way.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: But I'm really curious about you. What was your personal
Speaker 1: relationship with beauty as a child?
Speaker 3: I didn't think about it as a really little one.
Speaker 3: I remember not thinking about it when I was like
Speaker 3: two and a half or three, when I started having
Speaker 3: memories and I was kind of looked like a boy
Speaker 3: and people call me Blair, and I kind of didn't.
Speaker 3: I just didn't have that sense of femininity or looking
Speaker 3: in the mirror. Maybe I didn't reach the mirror, so
Speaker 3: I don't remember thinking anything. And then I remember in
Speaker 3: kindergarten I really wanted to wear dresses, but people made
Speaker 3: fun of me.
Speaker 2: I was still a boy.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't until honestly that I saw your book
Speaker 3: because I had really thick eyebrows and people would make
Speaker 3: fun of me a little, nothing horrible, but definitely a little.
Speaker 3: And my mom got me your book, and that, really,
Speaker 3: funnily enough, introduced me to beauty and what I thought
Speaker 3: would be amazing to look like and act like your grace.
Speaker 2: Really, I don't say this to be a sycophant to you.
Speaker 3: I say this because it is amazing that your experien
Speaker 3: sperience for you is so different than your experience for me.
Speaker 1: That's so touching for me to hear, because to me
Speaker 1: there was arrogance and everything you know, why would I be.
Speaker 1: Who's to say? It's so layered too, your mom buying
Speaker 1: you that book, and you the person in your book,
Speaker 1: and I loved your book and I both read it
Speaker 1: and listened to it. And we grew up with very
Speaker 1: powerful maternal figures in our lives. And when you write
Speaker 1: about your mom, I'm so interested in it because you
Speaker 1: say your mom was your first great love.
Speaker 2: I can't quite shake it either.
Speaker 3: You know it's still there, which is good, thank God,
Speaker 3: because she's my mother and you want to have that feeling.
Speaker 3: But she touched and or contaminated every part of my
Speaker 3: being just by the sake of being a mother and
Speaker 3: being the one I looked to. We're very much only
Speaker 3: at each other.
Speaker 1: She's obviously so oppressive, and I think, and she was
Speaker 1: a lawyer.
Speaker 3: She was a judge, right, She never even graduated like
Speaker 3: Bassa or or high school, and then went on to
Speaker 3: Bassa after not graduating high school, and then isn't that amazing?
Speaker 3: And then went to law school without having graduated Vassar.
Speaker 2: It was like the last and she was one of
Speaker 2: the only women in her law school.
Speaker 3: And it was only because she got married, thought she'd
Speaker 3: be a doctor's wife. He left and she had a
Speaker 3: little baby, and so she sat in her room, played solitaire,
Speaker 3: smoked cigarettes for one week, grieved, got up, applied to
Speaker 3: law school and said, fucking I'm not going to ever
Speaker 3: let anyone boss me around again. So she became a
Speaker 3: lawyer and then a judge for forty years. And she
Speaker 3: was home by dinner every night at seven.
Speaker 1: Took cook for her family. I mean, she sort of
Speaker 1: lived her life like a single mother, yea, even though
Speaker 1: she was remarried.
Speaker 3: She did, and I viewed her as that, And that's
Speaker 3: why my father was rather inconsequential for me. But I
Speaker 3: was actually thinking as day of all the things he did.
Speaker 3: You know, he put me in good schools, He did
Speaker 3: pay for schools and stuff.
Speaker 2: My mom kind of.
Speaker 3: Paid for herself and our clothes, and dad paid for
Speaker 3: education in camps.
Speaker 2: And all that.
Speaker 1: But the mother is your lifeline, you know, It's the
Speaker 1: umbilical cord.
Speaker 2: It was shocking when my mother died. Did you feel
Speaker 2: that too?
Speaker 1: I watched it and I thought, if I watch it,
Speaker 1: I will believe it's true.
Speaker 3: Right, I will absorb everything I should of this and
Speaker 3: it will go through me and it will be natural.
Speaker 3: Nothing about it and I and had nothing prepared me
Speaker 3: for the I felt.
Speaker 2: I still do. I felt a drift.
Speaker 1: Were you with her?
Speaker 3: No, it was COVID. It was in the beginning of COVID.
Speaker 3: I had no idea. It was just a shock. It
Speaker 3: was the beginning of COVID. So even though my mother
Speaker 3: and I was writing the book and it just on
Speaker 3: the bone marrow transplant, and I couldn't get to her
Speaker 3: or my family or any of it, there was no closure.
Speaker 3: It's still painful to think about what we all went
Speaker 3: through and what.
Speaker 2: We all go through in life.
Speaker 3: What we all go through, it's amazing we get up
Speaker 3: the next day sometimes when I think of it, because
Speaker 3: it was the thing that would break my heart. Of
Speaker 3: course people go through much worse, but on the scale
Speaker 3: of things that break your heart and leave you with
Speaker 3: a sense of things you can't resolve, it's not being there.
Speaker 1: Where was it with your mom when she died?
Speaker 3: It was well, she started having some you know, forgetful
Speaker 3: like things were happening to her. So it got quite
Speaker 3: detached and I had to just think, she's gone already.
Speaker 1: Did she recognize you?
Speaker 2: She did?
Speaker 3: She The last time I saw her, I said, can
Speaker 3: you give me a kiss and she was like, ah no,
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, it's her because she hated
Speaker 3: giving kisses and hugging and all I wanted was that.
Speaker 3: So she did, and she kissed me on my forehead gently, gently,
Speaker 3: and I had my sister take a picture, even though
Speaker 3: she looked awful, and she would kill me if she
Speaker 3: knew I took that picture. But it meant everything to
Speaker 3: have my mother gently kissing my hand because she never really,
Speaker 3: it'll never be enough, you know, I still turn into
Speaker 3: my mother would say, Maudelin. You know, she'd make fun
Speaker 3: of me. Oh, it's almost dot acting up that beautiful.
Speaker 2: Brilliant woman.
Speaker 3: Brookshields and audience don't want to hear you sniveling about
Speaker 3: your dead mother, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, she was just tough.
Speaker 1: My mother would be like, keep talking about me, Just
Speaker 1: keep talking about me. Forget who you're interview got.
Speaker 2: She was worthy of it. She made a good one.
Speaker 3: But it is amazing how in perspective I've let go
Speaker 3: of the things that upset me and I only want
Speaker 3: to think of love, like I really am turning to
Speaker 3: that to not consciously pivoting in my life. And I
Speaker 3: did that with my sobriety and then even more when
Speaker 3: I felt I can trust myself with the diagnosis and
Speaker 3: all those things, and so the things like mother or
Speaker 3: the pain of mother dying in COVID or all those things,
Speaker 3: I just I just look at classrooms now, you know things.
Speaker 2: I guess I need it, or I needed so I
Speaker 2: could help someone else.
Speaker 1: Looking back, I was really shocked when I read your book,
Speaker 1: because I had just no idea that you were struggling
Speaker 1: in your personal life. You were a household name, but
Speaker 1: you were never tabloid fodder.
Speaker 2: No. I was always a loner.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a loner that talks a lot when
Speaker 3: I'm out in public. But also because I was a drinker,
Speaker 3: I knew I couldn't control it because I had done
Speaker 3: it very young and knew I would get myself in
Speaker 3: bad situation.
Speaker 2: So by the time I was.
Speaker 3: Grown enough to have moved here, I really didn't go
Speaker 3: out and drink much.
Speaker 2: That happened like once.
Speaker 1: To drink alone, I drank. That's a very good alcoholic.
Speaker 1: You were a very good alcoholic.
Speaker 2: I was a purist. I was a purist was.
Speaker 1: A true meaning of functioning alcoholic because it never interfered
Speaker 1: with right.
Speaker 3: I'm sure I could have chosen like better made better choices,
Speaker 3: and I could have had maybe a less complicated life
Speaker 3: if I didn't have drinking. But then I also think
Speaker 3: would I have survived it because I was also I
Speaker 3: thought so depressive. I have no idea if it was
Speaker 3: m as fatigue or depression. It's hard to have a
Speaker 3: vocabulary for what you don't know you are. It's just
Speaker 3: like a low, so I don't know. I never really
Speaker 3: knew what I was feeling. The drinking definitely masked physical
Speaker 3: and emotional just so I.
Speaker 2: Could bear life.
Speaker 1: So it was a crutch.
Speaker 2: It was a crutch, It was a life raft.
Speaker 3: It was saving me until I not stop and I
Speaker 3: was not engaging normally and going through things in real time.
Speaker 1: But you said you started at seven years old. What
Speaker 1: crutch do you think you needed at seven to start
Speaker 1: sipping all the drinks?
Speaker 3: I remember feeling shame at age three about what shame
Speaker 3: because I didn't had to do with In preschool, I
Speaker 3: was spanked by the teacher because I was didn't clean
Speaker 3: something up that wasn't mine, blah blah blah, and I
Speaker 3: was and I stood up for myself and she put
Speaker 3: me over her lap, and she repeatedly hit me as
Speaker 3: I cried, I'm sad, I'm sad, because I had an
Speaker 3: that said what I said, what do I say if
Speaker 3: I feel like I don't want to go on?
Speaker 2: And she said, you have to tell people.
Speaker 3: If you're sad, you tell people, And so I took
Speaker 3: her advice, and in that moment of panic, I you know,
Speaker 3: as she was slapping me and through my tears at
Speaker 3: the other kids, I said, I'm.
Speaker 2: Sad, I'm sad, and she didn't stop. And it puts
Speaker 2: such a distrust in the world.
Speaker 3: And then when I started getting sick or losing my
Speaker 3: eyesight and they couldn't see it because it was a
Speaker 3: brain thing, and that was also distrust in myself because
Speaker 3: they were saying, it's it's she's I don't know why
Speaker 3: she's so sensitive. So those two things made me very
Speaker 3: afraid of the world at a very young age. I
Speaker 3: was sensitive person, I guess, and I was terrified. So
Speaker 3: that drink at age seven of not feeling I told
Speaker 3: trust myself, not believed what I said, or it wouldn't
Speaker 3: be heard, or you know, life moved fast. I was
Speaker 3: one of four kids. I was sensitive. Maybe I had
Speaker 3: an asshole of a teacher. It was a different time.
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to say things in the right
Speaker 3: tone of voice. I have no idea, but I have.
Speaker 3: I had an emotionally hard time for whatever reason, and
Speaker 3: I didn't trust myself, and the drinking was a huge self.
Speaker 1: Well, nobody was allowing you. They weren't validating any of
Speaker 1: your emotions.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when you like, when you first started
Speaker 1: what you now know is juvenile MS.
Speaker 3: It was probably when I was like six or seven,
Speaker 3: and it was an optical the writis issue, but that
Speaker 3: was never looked into.
Speaker 2: It's just called a lazy eye.
Speaker 3: But then once we did other tesla and then I
Speaker 3: had optical the writis again at twenty three, and it
Speaker 3: was always my symptoms of MS, whether it was pre
Speaker 3: dromal or whatever is called.
Speaker 2: Whatever it was, it was very similar and optical the writis.
Speaker 3: And I just I was not believed, and I lost
Speaker 3: bladder function and things were happening, and alosh dan los
Speaker 3: and so a kidney kind of fell and things were
Speaker 3: happening that just were showing I was having a struggle,
Speaker 3: you know, with my nervous system and stuff.
Speaker 1: What's striking to me how long you had it?
Speaker 3: I know, and if I were a boy, I do
Speaker 3: believe there was one doctor, and it was after I
Speaker 3: had It was actually my eye doctor, of all things,
Speaker 3: but it was he after I had overdosed from extreme
Speaker 3: grief about something. I was put in my first rehab
Speaker 3: at twenty on my twenty third birthday, and I got
Speaker 3: sober for the first time. But the my father, Elliott,
Speaker 3: took me to go get like, while you're in town
Speaker 3: from New York, let's get your appointments.
Speaker 2: And I went to the eye doctor.
Speaker 3: I was twitching and having all these ticks, which I'd
Speaker 3: never had this long, and these things from this episode
Speaker 3: of this overdose caused a little bit of brain trauma,
Speaker 3: and the eye doctor, after looking in my eye, just said,
Speaker 3: do you have MS?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: It was like I thought it would be something you'd know,
Speaker 3: you know, like I didn't know what MS really was,
Speaker 3: but I knew that it was maybe movement or breathing.
Speaker 2: I didn't really know, but it was like more.
Speaker 3: Extreme than anything I, you know, any doctor ever told
Speaker 3: me I had.
Speaker 2: And I was searching for a long time.
Speaker 3: I had all these you know, autoimmune issues that kind
Speaker 3: of racked up. So he said it, and then I
Speaker 3: did I went to a neurologist, but by that time
Speaker 3: that the optical the writis had faded and so he
Speaker 3: didn't see it, which happens with MS. But he never
Speaker 3: did give me an MRI, even though I also had
Speaker 3: the tics and everything. He said, oh, those are just
Speaker 3: my chronic seizures from you know, the little bit of
Speaker 3: brain damage. It'll go away as that goes away, And
Speaker 3: it's like, oh my god, they were such clear signs
Speaker 3: of MSS.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you think things would have been
Speaker 1: different if you had gotten the diagnose earlier.
Speaker 3: I think my emotional state would have been a lot
Speaker 3: stronger because I would have had some realization that I
Speaker 3: could trust myself, that I could get back into my body,
Speaker 3: that there'd be a way to sort through this kind
Speaker 3: of distance I had for myself because I was scared
Speaker 3: and didn't trust myself. I thought, well, I'm just hyper sensitive,
Speaker 3: So that would have done something for me. It would
Speaker 3: have probably saved a couple of years of grief in
Speaker 3: my life.
Speaker 2: But I don't know if I was ready.
Speaker 3: I wasn't ready, I guess, because I think they would
Speaker 3: have considered a very harsh diagnosis. Then I might not
Speaker 3: have gone on this same way and I was still drinking.
Speaker 1: How many times did it take you? I say this
Speaker 1: because my mother was in rehab three or four times,
Speaker 1: arrested a couple of times, and never got sober. But
Speaker 1: whenever I hear and see a story of sobriety and
Speaker 1: the work that it takes every day, I know that
Speaker 1: and it's forever. But when I look at the years
Speaker 1: of sobriety, I'm in such awe of what place you
Speaker 1: had to get to to get there? How many times
Speaker 1: did it take?
Speaker 2: I am too.
Speaker 3: I'm so grateful that I'm not, you know, gone, because
Speaker 3: I have a son and there's things now that I
Speaker 3: have a different perspective on life, and I'm very grateful
Speaker 3: I'm here.
Speaker 2: But it took me.
Speaker 3: God, I started with attempted, like real ways to hurt myself,
Speaker 3: like very young too, So I got in that mode
Speaker 3: and I didn't build the other stuff, you know, positive affirmations.
Speaker 2: And kept going down.
Speaker 3: So I'd say that my first real sobriety was at
Speaker 3: that twenty three and it was only like a few years.
Speaker 2: Oh God, I must have had to get sober. I'm
Speaker 2: not joking twenty times.
Speaker 1: Did you have a good therapist?
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 3: I actually have a therapist. Now, that's a huge comfort
Speaker 3: and like a lightning rod for me. But I didn't
Speaker 3: find you know, I really do for me though, I
Speaker 3: really had to go through it and no therapy was
Speaker 3: gonna help me until I understood that I actually also
Speaker 3: had something neurologically wrong with me, because I just keep
Speaker 3: beating myself up.
Speaker 1: But how did you You hit it?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 1: I mean like, I don't know how.
Speaker 2: But getting sober it took until I prayed.
Speaker 3: I'm not joking, but I prayed every night since I
Speaker 3: was twenty three.
Speaker 2: Please God make a miracle that I stay sober.
Speaker 3: Please God give me the dignity of my humanity to
Speaker 3: have me not die drunk.
Speaker 2: I don't know why that counted to me.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying someone's undignified if they die a drunk,
Speaker 3: but to me, I wanted to say I died in
Speaker 3: this body.
Speaker 2: I pray that remains the case, and every day I
Speaker 2: will be on that.
Speaker 3: But I do feel the miracle kind of has happened
Speaker 3: of a different perspective also, where I do feel stronger
Speaker 3: in that I absolutely feel I need and want to
Speaker 3: be sober. I didn't want to before.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason I asked you to be on
Speaker 1: this show is that I think you are such an inspiration.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you.
Speaker 1: I mean dancing with the Stars, I can't even.
Speaker 2: It was terrifying to me.
Speaker 3: I never wanted to do it, never, never, never, except
Speaker 3: when you were young.
Speaker 2: You did Circus of the Stars.
Speaker 1: I did the Stars. I first trained the dogs. I
Speaker 1: trained the dogs.
Speaker 3: And do you know I was most I remember that,
Speaker 3: And I was most likely in my high school yearbook
Speaker 3: at Cranbrooke, Me and Todd Kessler, who's now a brilliant writer, director,
Speaker 3: truly brilliant damages all these things. He and I were
Speaker 3: voted most likely to be an circumcars And then it's like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, it I kind of manifested because that
Speaker 3: doesn't exist anymore. But dancing with the Start is something
Speaker 3: I never wanted to do. I am not someone that
Speaker 3: has rhythm in the sweetest thing. I needed to be trained,
Speaker 3: like ten years. It felt like to just do like
Speaker 3: the electric slide.
Speaker 1: So what made you say yes?
Speaker 3: What made me say yes is something really horrible to
Speaker 3: me happened in my life for a moment that I'm
Speaker 3: now recovered from. But and I was really going back
Speaker 3: into old patterns not harming, but like the will my
Speaker 3: life force went so down with this hit, you know,
Speaker 3: this emotional hit I had. And then when Sasha, my
Speaker 3: neighbor and now friend, came to me, and he had
Speaker 3: asked a couple times through the years, come on, you
Speaker 3: want to do that, and I'm like, I never, never,
Speaker 3: don't ever ask me. And so when he did this time,
Speaker 3: and he kind of convinced me, like, just come with
Speaker 3: me for an hour and like, let's see how you move,
Speaker 3: Let's see if you can be taught. And I went
Speaker 3: and dancing with him, just doing like a simple like
Speaker 3: rumba or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I realized if he holding my hand
Speaker 2: and if I repeat.
Speaker 3: The step enough, I could get my step where it
Speaker 3: wasn't like dystonic if it were slow enough. And I thought,
Speaker 3: oh wow, this hour with him felt better than the
Speaker 3: last fifty hours of my life where I was sitting
Speaker 3: in fear. So let me get out and at least
Speaker 3: have these hours then with this person showing me something.
Speaker 2: And it turned out to be so rewarding and beautiful.
Speaker 2: And I loved everyone on.
Speaker 1: That show, and they loved you, and the people loved you,
Speaker 1: and you looked so beautiful. Oh god, it was.
Speaker 2: I'm so touched that you say it. But we all
Speaker 2: like want to have that moment. Maybe not all of.
Speaker 3: Us, but we all want to have some type of moment,
Speaker 3: some type of moment that we feel we overcame something
Speaker 3: that was maybe simple to other people.
Speaker 2: So pat on the back to me. Yeah, you know
Speaker 2: for MS, because my MS is.
Speaker 3: Very emotionally activated, the ticks and the motion and stuff.
Speaker 3: So that was a fear like, oh God, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: and I wouldn't have been able to do it without
Speaker 3: the goodwill of the people that had been behind me
Speaker 3: in general, like rooting me on through all that I showed.
Speaker 1: But that's a testament to you as a survivor. And
Speaker 1: I used to ping the title, but when I think
Speaker 1: of endurance, longevity, fortitude, or forward moving like I think
Speaker 1: of you. And I called this show now What because
Speaker 1: it really boils down to the now what moments in
Speaker 1: our lives where we must pivot or where we are
Speaker 1: not off balance. I think we've all had many what
Speaker 1: is a now what moment for you that stands out?
Speaker 2: It was huge mine, now what it was?
Speaker 3: It was one of my biggest fears other than a
Speaker 3: real tragedy was my public humiliation.
Speaker 1: Is this on the plane?
Speaker 3: Yeah, on the plane where you know someone had you know,
Speaker 3: where I had obviously been in huge emotional distress and
Speaker 3: a kind of blackout or pass out whatever.
Speaker 2: You know. It's just one of those ugly moments.
Speaker 3: Google me is what I say when, like someone offers
Speaker 3: me a drink and I'm like, no, no, I don't
Speaker 3: I don't want one, thank you so much, and they're like.
Speaker 2: No, not really, just try it, and I'm like google me.
Speaker 2: So it was like I had it.
Speaker 3: It was like I had to immediately make that decision
Speaker 3: once I had been in that predicament where I had
Speaker 3: been locked in the room in Mexico with you know,
Speaker 3: kind of not a great relationship with with dad, yet
Speaker 3: with custody, like trying to make the best of it.
Speaker 2: Didn't know I was totally in an MS.
Speaker 3: Flare, So I was way more off kilter and emotionally,
Speaker 3: you know, and I just gave up my sobriety. I
Speaker 3: had had a few years, so to know that happened
Speaker 3: on its own. Thank god we didn't have to make
Speaker 3: an emergency landing at work. Thank God I didn't, you know,
Speaker 3: there was a nurse there. I was oxygen and things
Speaker 3: and being taken I don't remember any of it. I
Speaker 3: woke up in a taken off a stretcher, woke up
Speaker 3: in the hospital with an IV the doctor saying, you know,
Speaker 3: you might add a silent heart attack, and I was like, whoa,
Speaker 3: where's my son? This is ever happened to? Like where
Speaker 3: is my son? What happened? And it was my first
Speaker 3: ever blackout with him, of course, well maybe not, of course,
Speaker 3: but it was and knowing it was a public humiliation,
Speaker 3: knowing that I had really really done a horrendous thing
Speaker 3: that was going to be life changing, and I made
Speaker 3: in that decision, I mean in that second, I said,
Speaker 3: your life has changed, You're done.
Speaker 2: And I felt true apologies for disturbing.
Speaker 3: Like a lot of things hit me in that moment,
Speaker 3: and it was like, I can't be this person. I'm
Speaker 3: going to be sober, and you did, and I want
Speaker 3: to I'm interested in how you were, how you recovered.
Speaker 3: You could have also been handled with more care and
Speaker 3: not taken advantage of by some asshole making it public.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not taking into any consideration your son, your dignity.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: It is interesting though that you that something subconscious chose
Speaker 1: something so because you you were very good at doing
Speaker 1: it silently. You're very good at doing it quietly.
Speaker 3: And it was a totally It was I think my
Speaker 3: angels or whatever it is, that guy just just knows
Speaker 3: the my low could only handle a public humiliation. I
Speaker 3: could not handle if I killed someone. I could not
Speaker 3: handle if I did something. Just so you know that,
Speaker 3: I couldn't forgive myself. I'm not saying people shouldn't if
Speaker 3: things happened, but it was. This was my first time
Speaker 3: being discovered. Maybe in the past boyfriends would experience me
Speaker 3: like swearing and being like, you're a like having tantrums,
Speaker 3: like as the drunk lady that doesn't realize what they're doing.
Speaker 3: That happened in my youth and things, and they'd write
Speaker 3: down me like swearing, but that was I never done anything. This,
Speaker 3: This was off brand even for me. Cover was blown
Speaker 3: because I only drank.
Speaker 2: My cover was fucking blown. This was my only real cover.
Speaker 3: The other ones were always suicide attempts that didn't necessarily
Speaker 3: seem alcoholic, but they always were.
Speaker 1: What do you think you learned about yourself since that time?
Speaker 3: Oh gosh that if I am not wasted I'm a
Speaker 3: great person, Like I'm great enough. You know, I'm great enough,
Speaker 3: you know. But I realize, like, oh, I can get
Speaker 3: through like almost anything if I just say, next logical
Speaker 3: step in how excel next logical step, I can't get
Speaker 3: in too much trouble.
Speaker 1: Well, Also, it's physical, it's emotional, it's mental. It's a
Speaker 1: mental next step, it's a physical next step. It's a
Speaker 1: connection between.
Speaker 3: I know I have a long way to go to
Speaker 3: feel comfortable in my skin in the heartache way. You know,
Speaker 3: I carry around grief. I think a lot of people do,
Speaker 3: and I wonder if there's a way to move forward
Speaker 3: with really like learning to let that go if it
Speaker 3: doesn't serve me anymore.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to be that person. I want
Speaker 2: to find joy.
Speaker 3: I want to believe that like anything can still happen,
Speaker 3: not just good enough.
Speaker 1: What are you looking forward to right now?
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 3: Long summer nights because I can stay up longer in
Speaker 3: the daylight, like because I get out usually once the
Speaker 3: sun's setting, you know, in my life, like out of
Speaker 3: the house, because then I can like walk more clearly,
Speaker 3: I get more relaxed, you know. My nervous system all
Speaker 3: that without the inflammatory properties of the sun. So to me,
Speaker 3: this is like a whole like more productive and these
Speaker 3: are always core memories, these summertimes, at the longer nights
Speaker 3: when weather's kind of temperate almost everywhere. But I'm looking
Speaker 3: forward to manifesting things. Okay, like what manifesting? Gosh, this
Speaker 3: is something I never I don't even know how to do.
Speaker 2: And this is a big thing to admit.
Speaker 3: But like love, like I've never worked on a relationship
Speaker 3: like truly, truly thinking I deserve something, and I've always,
Speaker 3: like my mother's always said, you'll never be with someone
Speaker 3: you're not meant to be or I'm too complicated, or
Speaker 3: I didn't know not a compromis, or I was always
Speaker 3: trying to please the boyfriend that always would make lists
Speaker 3: of how to be a better per or that is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Just choosing people that were gonna knock me down like
Speaker 3: that was obviously something you know that I was playing into.
Speaker 1: But do you see how a list like that from
Speaker 1: a boyfriend is about them? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Of course, I mean, and I think I always did,
Speaker 3: but I'd still want to please them even though it's
Speaker 3: about them, because I didn't know where i'd get my
Speaker 3: next bit of attention paid to me, maybe like genuine attention,
Speaker 3: believing it could be loved, Believing somewhere this person could
Speaker 3: be a big part of my life. I just had
Speaker 3: to work through this, and now I do have a
Speaker 3: sense of what I would actually like.
Speaker 2: But not much.
Speaker 3: I've never thought to just manifest, like what would be
Speaker 3: great to like?
Speaker 2: Who? What kind of person do you want in your life?
Speaker 2: I've never made that list. I never thought. I was like,
Speaker 2: what's the point? That's gross.
Speaker 3: I don't want to chase something. You know what, I
Speaker 3: could chase an idea, that's okay. I can chase an
Speaker 3: idea like I'm ready.
Speaker 1: That was Selma Blair And if you want to hear
Speaker 1: more from her, check out her new book, Mean Baby.
Speaker 1: That's it for us today. Tune in next week now.
Speaker 1: What with Brooke Shields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our
Speaker 1: lead producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research
Speaker 1: and editing by Darby Masters and Abu Zafar. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Vahid Fraser.