Christina Applegate Details "Fatalistic" Depression Amid Multiple Sclerosis Battle

Christina Applegate is getting candid about her mental and physical aspects of her health journey. 

Amid her battle with multiple sclerosis, the Married…With Children star shared insight into her struggle with depression due to the physical effects of her disease. 

"I am in a depression right now, which I don't think I've felt for years," Christina explained to Jamie-Lynn Sigler on the June 4 episode of the duo's MeSsy podcast, which was recorded earlier this year. "Like a real, f--k it all, like real depression where it's kind of scaring me too a little bit because it feels really fatalistic."

The 52-year-old, who shared her MS diagnosis back in 2021, noted, "I'm trapped in this darkness right now that I haven't felt like—I don't even know how long, probably 20 something years."

And Christina—who shares daughter Sadie, 11, with her husband of 11 years Martyn LeNoble—also expressed feeling tired of her own negative feelings surrounding her illness. 

"I can't believe it's going to be three years since diagnosis in June," she admitted. "And I'm still sitting here like ‘Boohoo, woe is me.' I'm still mad about it."

However, as a result of the toll the disease has taken on her body, she has found herself unable to find pleasure in life. 

As she put it, "I don't enjoy living—I don't enjoy things anymore."

In fact, the Dead to Me alum touched on her surprise appearance at the Emmys in January, recalling how difficult it was for her afterwards.

"I did the thing, you know, the television thing," Christina, who was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy at the ceremony, explained. "That was like the hardest day of my life. Started at 11 o'clock in the morning and didn't get home until 9:30. I think I slept for two days straight after that. I couldn't even function."

And while Christina received encouraging words of wisdom from Jamie-Lynn—who has been battling MS for over 20 years—she noted that the only thing she's been able to put her energy toward was caring for her 11-year-old. 

"I'm kind of just like giving up," she lamented. "You know me. I'm so like, ‘Well you know this is it. I'm just going to lay in bed and sleep all the time and then when my daughter needs me, I'll be there for her and I'll do everything for her."

The Anchorman actress also noted that while she had a scheduled appointment with a therapist, she was worried that the "floodgates" would open, and she wouldn't be able to close them again. However, Jamie-Lynn pushed back. 

"I see more light in that process for you," she encouraged. "I can't let you give up. I can't do it. I need you to do it." 

Throughout her MS diagnosis, Christina has been open about the ups and downs. Keep reading for a dive into her health journey. 

Christina Applegate shared she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021.

"Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS," she shared on her social media channels that August. "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."

"Oh, by the way, I have a disease," she joked during her November 2022 Hollywood Walk of Fame induction ceremony, her first public appearance since her MS diagnosis. "Did you not notice? I'm not even wearing shoes."

Christina believes her MS journey actually began "six or seven years" before her 2021 diagnosis.

"I noticed, especially the first season [of Dead to Me], we'd be shooting and my leg would buckle," Christina explained during a March 2024 interview on Good Morning America. "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."

By the time she was shooting the Netflix series' third and final season, the actress said she was "being brought to set in a wheelchair."

"I couldn't move that far," she recalled, "so I had to tell everybody because I needed help."

The Dead to Me star captioned this photo of her cane collection amid her battle with MS: "Walking sticks are now part of my new normal."

Joined by her daughter Sadie Grace LeNoble, Christina had a simple message for multiple sclerosis while attending the 2023 SAG Awards: "F U MS."

After a receiving standing ovation at the 2023 Emmys, the Married...With Children alum quipped, "You're totally shaming me with disability by standing up."

"I make these jokes because if I don't, I'll suffocate," Christina shared on a March 2024 episode on Armchair Expert, explaining why she often pokes fun at her condition. "I'll be done."

"I have 30 lesions on my brain," she said on the same podcast. "My biggest one is behind my right eye, so my right eye hurts a lot."

Legions are caused by the immune system attacking the myelin sheath around nerves, according to the Multiple Sclerosis Trust.

Christina hasn’t held back when it comes to sharing her journey. 

"It sucks," the Anchorman actress told late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel of her daily struggles with MS. "I'm not going to lie. I think anyone who has MS isn't going to be like, 'This is the best thing that ever happened to me!'"

When talking about her day-to-day life with the disease, Christina told Good Morning America in March 2024, "I live kind of in hell."

"But I might get to a place where I function a little bit better," she added. "Right now, I'm isolating, and that's kind of how I'm dealing with it—by not going anywhere because I don't want to do it. It's hard." 

Christina credited her Sweetest Thing costar Selma Blair—who was diagnosed with MS in 2018—for urging her to get tested for the disease.

"She said, 'You need to get checked for MS,'" Christina recalled during her GMA interview. "If not for her, it could've been way worse."

Christina confirmed that Dead to Me will likely be her last onscreen credit, telling Vanity Fair in May 2023, "I can’t even imagine going to set right now."

"I’m probably not going to work on-camera again, but I'm so glad that I went out with someone who is by far the greatest actress I’ve ever worked with in my entire life," she said of costar Linda Cardellini, "if not the greatest human I’ve ever known.

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