Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up

This reminded me of Hayley Mills's memoir Forever Young. She writes about how brilliant and wonderful her parents were, but really, they were awful. Selma Blair writes the same about her mother. She laughs at the scathing remarks her mother made to her when she was a child and says but she was just so honest and she loved me so much. Did she? I'm not sure about that.

I've liked Selma Blair since the 90s but this book gave me such a newfound appreciation and respect for her after everyrhing she's gone through. Beautiful read.

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 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.

I read a memoir or two every year. I am so glad I chose this one for one this year's. I have too many loved ones with an MS diagnosis. For some, they were diagnosed fairly quickly, for most it took years of symptoms. This book helped understand what that was like.

She manages to bring out complicated information about people and still show us reasons to love them. We also see how much her illness affected her life especially when she didn't know what it was or that it wasn't normal.
This boo doesn't follow a specific timeline, but listening to the audiobook feels like Selma just telling us various life experiences. The writing is extremely well done and makes everything feel very special.

So many comical moments within her life story but ultimately it's a tale of survival. She's truly an inspirational person.