Christina Applegate Quells Concern Over Her “I Don’t Enjoy Living” Comment: “I’m Not Sitting Here On Suicide Watch”
Christina Applegate’s comment earlier this month that she doesn’t enjoy living anymore following her MS diagnosis caused concern among many for the Dead to Me star.
In the June 4 episode of her MeSsy podcast with fellow MS survivor Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Applegate candidly told listeners, “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,’” Applegate said on MeSsy. “I don’t mean that, but I’m trapped in this darkness right now that I haven’t felt in probably 20-something years.”
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She continued, “I don’t enjoy living. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy things anymore.”
The Married with Children alum addressed the comments in her latest episode of MeSsy.
“I was talking about some dark stuff that I was thinking and feeling,” she said. “I feel like when we hold things in we give them power. I also think that there’s so much shame a lot of people feel when they’re going through mental health issues … and when people holds those in, because they’re so afraid to say how they truly feel, we give it immense power.”
She added, it’s “incredibly healing and important to be able to express the thoughts, whether that makes someone uncomfortable or not.”
Applegate and Sigler started their podcast so they could share what it’s like living with MS.
“By making such a big deal about it you’re making other people think, ‘Oh, s—, 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.”
Applegate added. “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? 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 saying this sh*t out loud it releases the pressure in the balloon.”
Applegate was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in June 2021 and shared her illness publicly two months later.
Emmy winner Applegate is well known for performances in shows including Married… with Children, Jesse, Friends, Samantha Who? and more recently, Netflix’s Dead To Me. She has also been Tony nominated for her stage work and has starred in movies including The Sweetest Thing, Anchorman, Hall Pass, and Bad Moms.
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