Christina Applegate doesn’t ‘enjoy living’ following MS diagnosis

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Christina Applegate is opening up about her mental struggles and living with depression after her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis.

On a new episode of her MeSsy podcast, Applegate told co-host Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also suffers from MS, that she was “in a depression.”

“A real, f—-it-all depression — like, a real depression, where it’s kind of scaring me too a little bit because it feels really fatalistic, it feels really ‘end of,’” she said. “I don’t mean that, but I’m trapped in this darkness right now that I haven’t felt in probably 20-something years.”

The Married … With Children alum said that after being diagnosed with the disease, she doesn’t “enjoy living.” 

“I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy things anymore,” she added.

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According to the Cleveland Clinic, MS affects the central nervous system and can cause muscle weakness, vision changes, numbness and memory issues.

Applegate also revisited her decision to turn down an opportunity to join The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. “They asked me to be one, probably 10 years ago, I would say,” she said on the MeSsy podcast.

“And what’s funny is I ended up becoming really good friends with the executive producer of it because our kids went to school together. And he’s like, ‘Oh yeah, we asked you.’ I said, ‘Chris, now that you know me, would I have been a fun Housewife?’ He’s like, ‘No, it would’ve been the most boring s— I’ve ever seen in my life.’”

During an appearance on Dax Shepard’s podcast Armchair Expert earlier this year, Applegate called her MS diagnosis “the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life.”

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“It’s the worst tattoo,” the Emmy winner said. “It sucks. I’m not going to sit here and be like, ‘Oh my God, cancer was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’ Like, you had a pretty shitty life if that’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you.’ But this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life … I hate it so much. I’m so mad about it. You can’t overcome it.”

In an interview with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts in March, Applegate revealed she decided to get checked for MS after her toes started tingling when she was filming the final season of her Netflix series Dead to Me.

“I probably had it for six or seven years, I think,” Applegate says. “I noticed, especially the first season (of Dead to Me), we’d be shooting and my leg would buckle. I really just put it off as being tired, or I’m dehydrated, or it’s the weather. Then nothing would happen for months, and I didn’t pay attention. But when it hit this hard, I had to pay attention.”

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Applegate went on to add that she isolates herself because of the physical pain she experiences.

“I’m never going to wake up and go, ‘This is awesome,’” she told Roberts. “I’m just going to tell you that. Like, it’s not going to happen. I wake up and I’m reminded of it every day … But I might get to a place where I function a little bit better. Right now I’m isolating, and that’s kind of how I’m dealing with it, is by not going anywhere because I don’t want to do it. It’s hard.”

Applegate revealed her MS diagnosis in 2021, calling it “a strange journey.”

“A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS. It’s been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition. It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going,” she wrote in a tweet.

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“As one of my friends that has MS said ‘we wake up and take the indicated action.’ And that’s what I do. So now I ask for privacy. As I go through this thing,” her tweet added.

Applegate, who first gained fame as a child actress on the hit sitcom Married With Children, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and had a double mastectomy.

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