Since receiving her breast cancer diagnosis in 2015, Shannen Doherty has been transparent about every stage of her battle with the disease. And now that her cancer has returned and is stage IV, Doherty shared that the disease is simply a part of her life.

In the forthcoming Lifetime film “List of a Lifetime,” the actress, who portrays a cancer patient, told reporters on Tuesday that she felt a duty to “let people know that people with stage 4 [cancer] are very much alive and very active.”

“My husband says that you would never know that I have cancer,” she said about photographer Kurt Iswarienko. “I never really complain. I don’t really talk about it. It’s part of life at this point.”

The Lifetime movie tells the story of Brenda Lee (played by Kelly Hu). After Brenda is diagnosed with breast cancer, she decides to reach out to her biological daughter Talia, who was placed for adoption decades ago. Once they reconnect, Talia encourages Brenda to create a bucket list of things she’d like to do and vows to help her complete it. However, she keeps their growing bond a secret from her adoptive parents Diana (Doherty) and Marty (Jamie Kaler).

According to Lifetime, the film is part of the network’s “Stop Breast Cancer for Life” campaign, and Doherty directed special content as part of the initiative and in support of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Doherty was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, sharing in 2017 that she had gone into remission. But the actress announced in February 2020 that her illness had returned as stage four breast cancer.

Of course, different people have different experiences with cancer depending on the type, stage, and other factors. The symptoms of cancer at this advanced stage are typically related to where the cancer is in the body, the National Cancer Institute explains. For instance, someone whose cancer has spread to their lungs may have shortness of breath, and symptoms such as headaches and dizziness may be caused by cancer in the brain. But stage IV cancer (also called metastatic cancer) doesn’t always come with noticeable symptoms, and, again, everyone’s experience can be different.

When asked if she keeps a bucket list like the protagonist of List of a Lifetime, the Heathers actress had a thoughtful response. “I just think a bucket list is odd in my particular situation, because it means that I’m sort of trying to check things off before my time runs out,” she said. “If I had to say one, it would just be living. That’s the only thing on my list at this point.”

Doherty is focusing on living despite the stage four cancer. “I feel like I’m a very, very healthy human being,” Doherty told Elle last year. “It’s hard to wrap up your affairs when you feel like you’re going to live another 10 or 15 years.” It’s clear that the actress isn’t done working—or educating others about what it’s actually like to live with so-called terminal cancer.

“It’s like anybody with stage four faces this sort of thing, where others want to put you out to pasture,” Doherty continued in the Elle interview. “I’m not ready for pasture. I’ve got a lot of life in me.”

She echoed that sentiment a month later when she spoke with friend Sarah Michelle Gellar for an “Entertainment Tonight” interview.

“I love it when people say, ‘We’re praying for you,’ and everything else, but there comes a point when you’re like, ‘I got this. I’m fine. I’m good,’” Doherty said. “There are a lot of people in the world who could use prayers, and I’m feeling great. … I’m doing OK. I’m doing better than OK. I’m doing well. I feel strong and healthy and confident and happy.”

In an interview with “Good Morning America,” Doherty said the diagnosis was “a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways.”

“I definitely have days where I say, ‘Why me?’ And then I go, ‘Well, why not me?’ Who else? Who else besides me deserves this? None of us do,” she said last year. “But I would say that my first reaction is always concern about how — how am I going to tell my mom, my husband.”

Doherty said that she hadn’t disclosed her illness to many people at the time because she didn’t want to be coerced or subjected to any unusual treatment.