Selma Blair

Reading Mean Baby so soon after Jennette McCurdy's [b:I'm Glad My Mom Died|59364173|I'm Glad My Mom Died|Jennette McCurdy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649286799l/59364173._SY75_.jpg|93537110] might have been a mistake. Both women had difficult mothers and turned to alcohol to avoid dealing with their feelings. Selma Blair had the added burden of living with undiagnosed MS for decades. But while McCurdy's book reveals a young adult who fully show more recognizes the damage done by her mother's manipulative narcissism, Blair views the same behavior through rose-colored glasses, insisting that her mother's insults and neglect were just her unique ways to demonstrate love.

After discussing her childhood as a "mean baby," the bulk of Blair's stories of her adulthood contains numerous harrowing episodes of alcohol binging, rape/dub-con sex, and appearances by countless celebrities. Okay, we get it - you're friends with Claire Danes and Sarah Michelle Gellar, you dated Jason Schwartzman, and you had a bond with Carrie Fisher. Do you also have to continue to name drop scores of additional famous people in your acknowledgements?

The last third of the book is the most impactful. Blair becomes a mother and then finally realizes that the physical pain and other symptoms she has experienced for years are due to Multiple Sclerosis. She is brutally honest about the terror of being a new mom and realizing she can't use alcohol as an escape when she is responsible for a helpless infant. And she explains how MS flare-ups leave her in chronic pain, unable to walk, speak or even feel her own body. I admire the fact that she has been very public about her diagnosis and even released a documentary (Introducing Selma Blair) to increase public knowledge and reduce stigma about MS and chronic diseases in general.

Blair says she carries her own story inside her after years of listening to the stories everyone else told about her. I wish she had looked a little deeper before giving hers a voice. show less

Geez Louise – Selma Blair has had a hard life. The title of her book comes from that when she was an infant, her face supposedly looked scrunched up into an angry stare and everyone called her Mean Baby. It seems it became a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

I didn’t know very much about her before reading her book. Really, all I knew is that she had been fairly recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She’s also a recovering alcoholic and was sexually assaulted several times. And show more her mom! She seemed like a very cold and often cruel woman. She constantly criticized Selma and said the most horrible things to her. Selma is the youngest of four girls and was a surprise baby. I don’t remember the exact quote but when Selma was a child, her mom said something to her to the effect of, “You know, I could have had an abortion but I didn’t.” And yet Selma loved her and was desperate for her approval.

The entire book was tough to listen to. Selma narrates it herself and chokes up at several points. And I don’t blame her. Her alcoholism is probably sprung in part from self-medicating not only to forget about her mother and other problems but also because she suffered from painful physical symptoms for years before she was finally diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

The book’s timeline was a little jumbled but that didn’t bother me too much. I knew from reading reviews before I read it that it wasn’t going to be a fun, tell-all Hollywood memoir. Know that and read it when you’re in the mood for something more serious. It’s very well-written. Selma studied writing before she became an actress and it shows. Recommended. show less

Actress Selma Blair alleges here that a former Cranbrook dean touched her inappropriately.

A few months into school, the Dean’s embraces started to linger. He remarked I was pretty. Maybe inappropriate, but of course he was also married. To a woman I respected and found lovely. In fact, he and his wife once took me and my three best friends, Sue, Kelly, and Frances—we called ourselves the Fab Four—away for the weekend to their beach home in Tawas, Michigan.

There may have been more than show more one "Dean", but this is a specific time and place and tied to a fairly specific property. I am surprised "the Dean" has not been outed. I wonder if he is dead, dissembling, or brought down by similar crimes... There is worse sexual trauma recalled here: multiple rapes. Selma shares this and in narrating her own audiobook allowing her voice to break she delivers an impactful, moving life story. Along with alcoholism the specter of MS haunts her life unacknowledged until she learns of it and confronts it. With stem cell therapy and other help, she really turns things around moving away from self-destructive behavior and toward being a responsible mother and advocate for those that suffer from MS. It is fascinating to me that she has in her life relied so much on tea readers and other psychics, one of which predicted her future role as some kind of advocate. Still, sharing this perhaps questionable behavior is part of her candor in this affecting, moving biography of a life growing up in Michigan and building a career in film.

I want to preserve here my paraphrasing of a definition she repeats a few times: "Grief is just love that can no longer be received."

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I feel weird putting a star rating on this as it is so deeply personal.

Raw and honest, Selma Blair really shows you who she is in this. A powerful memoir about growing up, family, addiction, self discovery, motherhood, disability, and fame. She dives deep into her struggles with alcoholism and the effects undiagnosed MS on her life.

I’m interested to watch her documentary Introducing, Selma Blair after reading this.