Christina Applegate’s Daughter Misses Who She Was Before She Got Sick with MS

Applegate’s MeSsy podcast co-host Jamie-Lynn Sigler also shares how her two sons have had two very different responses to her own multiple sclerosis struggles.

Christina Applegate has been candid for years now about her life with multiple sclerosis, detailing how it’s impacted her professional and personal life, as well as her physical and psychological well-being. She’s also kept it real about the challenges its brought into her role as a mom to her daughter Sadie, 14.

In a new interview on SiriusXM’s Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa, the Married… with Children icon shared that her daughter is her motivation throughout her health challenges. “I get up because of her,” she said. “She’s the reason I’m still here and trying.”

At the same time, that brutal honesty of teenagers can sometimes prove hard to hear, which was definitely the case when Sadie said something that Applegate says led to “a big thing the other day.” between them.

“Sorry, Sadie, but it has to be said,” Christina said, before dropping the bombshell: “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 continued. “Every day of my life is at such a loss.”

As she got emotional recalling the conversation, Applegate added, “See, now I’m gonna cry. See, this is my problem. I’m either like, extremely traumatic and crying, or I’m cracking myself up. So I’m never in between.”

Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also has MS and co-hosts the MeSsy podcast with Applegate, agreed, chiming in with, “That’s the truth. It’s how it is. Those words have gone through my own head.”

“I think I judge myself the most as a mother through this journey,” she added. “I think that’s been the hardest part for me.” Sigler shares two sons, Beau, 11, and Jack, 7, with her husband Cutter Dykstra.

Sigler said that her boys react to her disease in different ways, with her older son acting “like my own personal Ted Lasso,” telling her with confidence, “You’re gonna beat this thing one day, Mom.”

“My little one hates it. He’s mad that I can’t run like all the other moms. He points it out all the time. Why do I walk like an old lady?” she continued. “Or like, why I can do this and I can’t do that.”

She said, however, that she thinks that expression is “very healthy” and she welcomes it. “I want him to be able to express himself with me,” she explained. “I don’t want him to feel bad because of how he feels about this, because this affects our entire family.”

Applegate and Sigler welcomed Sadie to their podcast last year to talk about how her mom’s disease has impacted her life. Just like she said with Ripa, Applegate described her daughter there as the “reason I get up in the morning and joy of my life.”

According to Sadie, it was her idea that she come on the podcast to speak of her experience as the child of someone living with MS, talking how how “it was hard seeing my mom lose a lot of the abilities she used to have in my childhood. When I was a kid, we would dance in her room for hours at a time.”

That’s something Applegate has talked about, and again she reiterated how “incredibly guilty” she feels any time she has a flare-up that makes it impossible for her to offer that physicality they used to be able to freely enjoy together.

“I don’t ever want you to feel that I’m not capable to be your protector, your mother, you know, I love you,” the Dead to Me star told her daughter. “I want to make you food. I want to bring it to you. I want to do all the things and I do when I can. And I feel incredibly guilty when I can’t.”

On top of that, the teen said that her own health issues have helped her to relate to what her mom is going through. According to Sadie, she has misophonia (which manifests in extreme reactions to certain sounds; in particular for her, “breathing and chewing”). She was also recently diagnosed with POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome).

According to the Cleveland Clinic, the condition causes one’s heart rate to increase dramatically (and more than average) when they shift from lying down to standing up. It can lead to dizziness, headaches, and more.

For Sadie, she said that her POTS sometimes gives her tremors, which has helped her to understand when her mom is dealing with a similar symptom. “If I didn’t have it, I probably would be like … I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said on the podcast. “It’s definitely a lot easier to understand what she’s going through when I have something I’m going through as well.”

Applegate and Sigler launched their MeSsy podcast to share frank and open conversations abut their lives with multiple sclerosis, with Applegate having already spoken herself about how her diagnosis has impacted her home life with her young daughter.

Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa broadcasts each Tuesday at 5pm ET on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy channel, and both shows are available to stream wherever you get your podcasts.