Christina Applegate has opened up about the heartbreaking reason she finds motivation to get out of bed each day after being diagnosed with MS.
The 53-year-old actress first spoke publicly about her health challenges in 2021, disclosing her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS).
At the time, she took to X, previously known as Twitter, to share: “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. Unless some a**hole blocks it.”
Multiple sclerosis is a serious condition that impacts the brain and spinal cord. Its symptoms may include difficulties with vision, arm or leg movements, sensation or balance, muscle stiffness, numbness, and complications with thinking, learning, and planning.
Recently, Applegate appeared on the Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa podcast and discussed a conversation she had with her 14-year-old daughter Sadie about her health struggles.
During the candid discussion, Applegate confessed: “I don’t get up in the morning with that, I get up because of her. She’s the reason I’m still here and trying.”
The actress continued: “But she did say to me, and we got into a big thing the other day, and sorry Sadie, but it has to be said. She said, ‘I missed who you were before you got sick’.
“That is just like a knife to the heart because I miss who I was before I got sick too. Very much.”
Applegate has been open about her daily struggles with MS and the impact it has had on her mental health.
On an episode of her podcast MeSsy, she revealed: “This is being really honest. I don’t enjoy living. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy things anymore.”
“If someone’s like, let’s get up and go for a walk and or let’s go get a coffee… I don’t enjoy that process.”
She further expressed: “What makes it harder is when you compare it to how it used to be. I’m in a depression right now, which I don’t think I’ve felt that for, like, years.
“Like a real f**k-it-all depression, like real depression, where it’s kind of scaring me too a little bit, because it feels really fatalistic… I’m trapped in this darkness right now that I haven’t felt like that in, I don’t even know how long, probably 20-something years.”