I've had MS for 13 years - here's what I'd tell a newly diagnosed person like Christina Applegate about what comes next

• Having a diagnosis for my many inexplicable symptoms made things a bit less scary.
• I've spent years dodging well-intentioned but unsolicited advice on how to cure my MS.
• Here's the advice I'd like to share with newly diagnosed people like Christina Applegate.

One day you wake up feeling strange. You know something's wrong, but you don't know what. Maybe it's dramatic like it was for me. I remember one morning, I suddenly couldn't feel my body from the waist down. Maybe it's smaller, like blurred vision, or dizziness, or tingling that won't go away.

Sometime after that - a day, a week, a year - you'll wake up again, and it will be the day after you've been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Christina Applegate recently shared she was diagnosed with MS, and she and others like her can expect a daunting road after the diagnosis.

At first, you're going to feel like a stranger to yourself. You won't know how you're supposed to act, or what you're supposed to say, or how you're supposed to dress. You're going to stare into a void, and it will stare back. You might even hear it snicker. The void is going to feel unbearably huge, like when you see those photographs showing how enormous the iceberg is underneath the water. But now you know its name.

It's called multiple sclerosis because when the immune system of an MS patient attacks the myelin sheaths surrounding nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, it can result in sclerosis, or hardened tissue, like a scar. It's chronic and degenerative, and no one really knows what causes it.

Knowing what I had made it all less menacing

I was diagnosed with relapse-remitting MS in 2008. Having a name for my previously inexplicable symptoms -numbness, sudden tingling, random pain, and nearly constant exhaustion - made it feel less ominous. It's like how the horror movie gets a little less scary when you finally see the monster. I didn't have to swing at shadows anymore.

Your friends will try to fix this because they love you. Strangers will also try to help. You'll spend the rest of your life dodging well-intentioned but unsolicited advice about how you can cure MS with beet juice, yoga, CBD, and meditation. My doctor once said, "If I could cure you with beet juice, I would."

And look, yoga is great. But what really helped me was laughing, crying, and swearing a lot, sometimes all at the same time. MS is stressful, and stress can make MS feel worse. Letting it all out works wonders. A little bourbon also helps.

Don't go on too many benders, though. You want to become your doctor's most medically boring patient. Take the medicine they give you, even when the side effects feel worse than the disease. There's no cure for MS. But effective treatments are nothing to sneer at, and if you're lucky, they might make you boring, too.

The worst thing about your MS won't be the endless string of MRIs, blood tests, and doctor's appointments, nor will it be navigating the serpentine alleyways of insurance claims and patient advocates and copay-assistance programs. It won't be the meds, or the pain, or even the days you can't get out of bed.

The worst thing will be how exhausting it is. Not just physically but emotionally. You'll get tired of your body attacking itself, and tired of talking to everyone about it, and tired of thinking about it, and tired of worrying about it.

You'll be so tired. Then you will just be so over it.

The next day, despite your new scars and a pharmacy's worth of pill bottles, you'll wake up and finally recognize yourself again.