Yahoo News Christina Applegate Clarifies “I Don’t Enjoy Living” Comment, Says She’s Not on “Suicide Watch”
After Christina Applegate candidly discussed her struggles with depression caused by her multiple sclerosis diagnosis and stated “I don’t enjoy living,” the actress is addressing the concern that arose from it.
In an episode of her MeSsy podcast released earlier this month, Applegate told co-host Jamie-Lynn Sigler that, at the moment, she was “in a depression.” “A real, fuck-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 continued. “I don’t mean that, but I’m trapped in this darkness right now that I haven’t felt in probably 20-something years. I don’t enjoy living. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy things anymore.”
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But in a new podcast episode released Tuesday, the actress clarified her comments. At the start of the episode, Applegate told Sigler, “Ask me how I am, Jamie. Oh my god, you guys, I’m so good. Isn’t that what everyone wants to hear? I’m good. Does that take a little bit of the pressure off of all of you? I’m good.”
She later explained, “I was talking about some dark stuff that I was thinking and feeling. … This is our safe place to get things out because I feel like when we hold things in we give them power.”
She added that she believes “there’s so much shame a lot of people feel when they’re going through mental health issues. It’s not mental issues. It’s not a problem. It’s a moment. It’s a thought. It’s a feeling. And when people hold those in because they’re so afraid to say how they truly feel, we give it immense power.”
Applegate reiterated that she doesn’t believe in society’s norm of telling everyone “we’re supposed to be fucking fine.” She said, “I think that it’s incredibly healing and important to be able to express the thoughts, whether that makes someone uncomfortable or not to be able to say that.”
After her previous comments, Applegate shared that she was texted from concerned people but was confused as to why and was “disturbed” by the “clickbait” that resulted from her comments.
“By making such a big deal about it, you’re making other people think, ‘Oh, shit, I can’t talk about this.’ And that is not OK with me,” Applegate continued. “It’s important to be able to say these things. And, no, I’m not sitting here on suicide watch, OK? I am not. Nor have I ever been.”
“I dare anyone to be diagnosed with MS or any kind of chronic illness that has taken who you were prior to that moment and go, ‘This is great.’ You know?” she challenged. “No, you have moments of feeling, ‘This is tiring and I don’t want to do this.’ But you do it, and by having friends like you and my beautiful friends that I have, by saying this shit out loud, it releases the pressure in the balloon.”
Applegate was diagnosed with MS in 2021 though in an interview with ABC News, she shared that she likely had the chronic central nervous system disease for several years before she was diagnosed.
“I probably had it for six or seven years, I think,” Applegate said. “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.”
In their podcast, Applegate and Sigler have conversations about coping with MS, among other topics. Sigler was diagnosed with MS in 2001.
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