Christina Applegate Marks 50th Birthday After MS Diagnosis: 'May We Find That Strength'

Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images Christina Applegate

Christina Applegate is kicking off a new chapter after revealing her multiple sclerosis diagnosis earlier this year.

The Emmy Award winner celebrated her 50th birthday Thursday, which was also Thanksgiving, with an encouraging message for her 1.4 million Twitter followers. "Yup. I turned 50 today. And I have MS. It's been a hard one," she wrote.

"Sending so much love to all of you this day," Applegate continued. "Many are hurting today, and I am thinking of you. May we find that strength to lift our heads up. Mine currently is on my pillow. But I try."

RELATED: James Marsden Says Christina Applegate's Strength Is 'Really Inspiring' amid Her MS Battle

She previously talked about her experience with MS on Twitter in August, a few months after she was diagnosed. "It's been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition," Applegate wrote at the time. "It's been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some asshole blocks it."

Applegate has since been met with love from friends and fans alike. Selma Blair, with whom she starred alongside Cameron Diaz in the 2002 romantic comedy The Sweetest Thing, offered her support in the replies.

"Loving you always. Always here. As are our kids. Beating us up with love," Blair, 49, wrote, to which Applegate responded: "Love you sister. Our kids are so weird."

Blair has also been open about her own MS diagnosis, which she revealed in 2018. Most recently, she detailed her journey with the disease in the discovery+ documentary Introducing, Selma Blair, which Applegate recommended on Twitter.

Applegate's Dead to Me costar James Marsden has praised her strength as well, telling Entertainment Tonight that it's "really, really inspiring to see."

RELATED VIDEO: Christina Applegate Reveals She Was Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis 'A Few Months Ago'

"That is her character. It is just who she is. Nothing is going to keep her down and she is going to battle and fight through anything and I admire her as a person," Marsden said in September. "Just as a compassionate, wonderful human being who is fun to work with but is also, in addition to that, anything that life will throw at her, she will figure out a way to not let it keep her down. And she is doing exactly that."