Christina Applegate says she feels ‘trapped in this darkness’ amid MS diagnosis

Christina Applegate is getting candid about living with multiple sclerosis.

In a new episode of her podcast MeSsy, which she cohosts with Jamie-Lynn Sigler, the Anchorman star discusses the challenges of living with the disease. “I’m kinda just giving up,” Applegate, 52, says in the episode, which was recorded several months ago and released Tuesday. “I’m so, like, ‘Well, this is just it. I’m just gonna 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, and push, and do anything I possibly can for her. And then I’ll turn the lights off and go back to sleep. It’s a bummer.”

Elsewhere, she says, “If I stand up in the morning and my feet hurt too much, I’m like, ‘Welp, I guess it’s gonna be a day of me just in my bed.’ And I know that if I just walk around a little bit, they’re gonna feel better, you know? But I give up so easily. But you know, I’m still f—in’ pissed off.”

Discussing the forthcoming anniversary of her 2021 diagnosis, she adds, “I can’t believe it’s gonna be three years since diagnosis in June, and I’m still sitting here like, ‘Boo hoo, woe is me,’ but I’m still mad.”

Applegate also laments that once-pleasant activities no longer bring her joy. “This is being really honest: I don’t enjoy living. I don’t enjoy it,” she says. “I don’t enjoy things anymore. You know, if someone can come over and lay in bed with me and talk, like you have… that’s enjoyable, I enjoy that. But if someone’s like, ‘Let’s get up and go for a walk’ or ‘Let’s go get a coffee,’ I don’t enjoy that process.”

Reflecting on presenting at the Emmy Awards in January, the Dead to Me actress admits, “That was like the hardest day of my life. You know, it started at 11 o’clock in the morning, and I didn’t get home til 9:30. Oh my God, I think I slept for like two days straight after that. I couldn’t function.”

Sigler offers kind words of affirmation in response, explaining how accepting her own MS has enriched her experience with the condition. “It takes a little bit of the extra suffering out of it, if that makes sense,” the Sopranos star says. “I think once we get you to this place where we’re just kinda accepting that this is how it’s gonna be, maybe forever… to me, it’s not a reason enough for you to stop living.”

She continues: “I sit here across from you and you still make me laugh like nobody else can, you still make me smile, you still make me feel loved. I enjoy talking to you. You were up on [the Emmys] stage with an entire auditorium of people, and everyone at home watching you, just wanting to shower you with love because you deserve it, and because of what you’ve given people as a performer, as a human.”

Applegate responds with a possible explanation for her persistently heavy thoughts. “I think I just, I’m in a depression right now, which I don’t think I’ve felt that for years,” she says. “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.”

Applegate also says she misses acting. “I’m sad about it, you know?” she explains. “I wasn’t sad about, like, not having to get up early. I’m really fine with that. And like, getting in a car and driving someplace and people touching my face with the makeups and the hairs and the things. I’m totally fine with not doing that for a minute, but I do miss creating.”

After a spirited brainstorming session, the two come up with a concept for a project that Applegate could participate in. “I’m an Uber driver! Oh my God, we just made the show,” Applegate says.

“It’s just you reacting to all the f—ing people you pick up,” Sigler says. “I have chills from head to toe.”

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly’s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Listen to the full conversation between Applegate and Sigler above.