The poem I wrote when I felt emotionally exhausted

Emotional exhaustion doesn't always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like showing up every day in the quiet hours of the night, spilling words on paper, while silently struggling beneath the surface. It looks like caring for the people you love while feeling as though your own emotional reserves are running dangerously low. Every bit of strength you have is spent on mundane things.

On the surface, life can appear normal—raising children, managing responsibilities, moving through routines. Yet internally, you can feel overwhelmed by a heaviness that's impossible to explain. There is a persistent sense of dread, a feeling that something is wrong, something is coming, and you have no power to stop it.

Decent initiated, so it would seem.

Writing has always been my way of processing difficult emotions. The poem that led you here emerged from a period of severe depression, anxiety, and burnout as I searched for answers I didn't yet have. Looking back, it became one of many poems that helped me recognize a pattern I couldn't ignore.

These words eventually led me toward a PMDD diagnosis—a diagnosis that not only provided clarity, but ultimately changed and saved my life. Together, these words helped make up my debut poetry book, Shadow Confessions: Raw Version, a collection of haunting poems and reflections on themes such as motherhood, mental illness, failed love, and resilience, through the lens of a woman experiencing (and discovering) her battle with PMDD.

Here's the full version of the poem:

poem: descent initiated

a chronic pinch of dread

a nagging ache that grinds my brain

I visit it often

about once a month

but this time, it’s not going away

I wake in it

feel my body melting into worry

before the sun can kiss my face

my heart tender from a loss

I have yet to discover

baby smiles warming my chest

are all that can resurrect me

until the turn of their cheek

whips icy aircutting through my heart

like a million shards

I don’t want to go to sleep

I’m afraid of wasting time

I don’t want to sleep too long

I’m afraid of wasting time

I don't want the shadows to come

I’m afraid they’ll take my time

this hole I’m sinking into

is sucking my life reserves

from the stash I dig in

when all feels hopeless

the one I save for those I love

replacing it with dense remorse

of decisions made by chance and luck

ten years of guilt

pining for different waves

knowing I’d still sail them by choice

if given the chance to turn back time

maybe I could drop

a message in a bottle

to warn my future self

to overfill my bucket

before I begin.

(Shadow Confessions by Shell Sherwood, pg. 47-48)

What inspired a poem about emotional exhaustion

Like many mothers, I carry the weight of everyday responsibilities, mental load, and the emotional demands of caring for a family. But my emotional exhaustion was never solely the result of modern-day struggles.

Emotional exhaustion is a common symptom intensified by Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), a condition that researchers are still striving to better understand. Thought to be caused by an abnormal sensitivity to the hormonal changes of the menstrual cycle, PMDD amplifies emotions, stress, fatigue, and self-loathing thoughts in devastating and dangerous ways.

When I wrote descent initiated, I must have been entering this familiar phase of my PMDD cycle (I honestly don't remember writing this poem; it kind of appeared in my journal!). Emotional exhaustion is always one of the last symptoms I notice before the darkest spiral begins. The final rocky step at the edge of a slope I've been fighting to stay atop before tumbling once again into the depths of PMDD despair.

One of the most difficult aspects of emotional exhaustion is that it can go entirely unnoticed by others. From the outside, you may appear to be functioning normally. You're taking care of your family, meeting deadlines, and continuing to show up for the people who depend on you. Inside, however, you may feel completely depleted.

Many of us try to hide it for as long as we can without addressing the underlying issues. No time, minimal time, or complete denial. But when emotional exhaustion finally becomes visible to those around you, you've reached a point where burnout has already been building for far too long.

That's the stage I was in when writing this poem. I was so burned out, I couldn't even fathom another PMDD cycle coming my way. I had yet to recover from the last one, and the one before, and the one before that. Years of falling behind to the point that I never knew if the next cycle would just take me under, never to return.

When emotional depletion turns into depression

One of the strongest images in the poem is the idea of a reserve tank. We all have emotional reserves that help us manage life's challenges. They allow us to support loved ones, navigate stress, and recover from difficult experiences.

But there are times when life requires more than we can replenish. That's what inspired the lines:

"this hole I’m sinking into, is sucking my life reserves." As a mother, I could always muster up a bit more, just to get through. But at the time of writing this poem, I was starting to run out of bits.

I had let emotional depletion lead to full-blown depression. There was no more energy to muster, and I was beginning to let everyone around me down. I was exhausted from the moment I opened my eyes in the morning. Every responsibility required energy I didn't have. Every part of the day felt like an impossible challenge, even when it was just a simple, everyday task.

It was in this phase of my life that PMDD cycles turned dangerous, and I had no support through the darkened times that knocked on my door every month.

The guilt that often accompanies depression and burnout

Another theme woven throughout descent initiated is guilt. How could I do this to my children?

When we're emotionally exhausted or depressed, it's easy to look backward and imagine alternate outcomes. We begin to question ourselves and our reality: What's wrong with me? I'm not meant to be here. If I was I wouldn't feel this way. My kids deserve better. Better than me.

You start to look back on moments when you were fully present. You play the I'll never get the time back reel over and over and beat yourself up into pretending that all is fine and that you can just get better. In turn, if you do happen to find more energy, you burn yourself out to oblivion.

If you're reading this and find any familiarity in this feeling, please know, it's not your fault. And also know–it's not forever.

How this poem connects to Shadow Confessions

The themes explored in descent initiated run throughout Shadow Confessions.

Written over the course of a decade, the collection explores depression, anxiety, motherhood, failed love, identity, healing, grief, resilience, and the emotional experiences that often remain hidden beneath the surface of the everyday life of a woman surviving with PMDD.

Many of these poems were written during moments I can barely remember—the dark hours of the night when I felt disconnected from myself, uncertain of my future, or overwhelmed by life's obstacles. Poetry became a way to process those experiences and give language to emotions that often felt impossible to explain.

In my darkest moments, however, poetry became something more. It was almost a form of code—a record of thoughts and feelings I couldn't fully access in the light of day. I would return to poems I had little memory of writing and find startling insight within them, as though a different version of myself had left clues behind.

While Shadow Confessions doesn't shy away from difficult topics, it is ultimately a collection about resilience. It is about exploring the dark, searching for light, and relishing in your survival. It's about finding meaning within struggle, and discovering strength in places we never expected to find it. Most importantly, it's the nudge I needed to finally realize something was wrong. Something that could be changed and a journey to share with others suffering similar fates.

Poetry for anyone struggling with emotional exhaustion

If you've ever felt emotionally exhausted, overwhelmed by responsibility, guilted by depression, lost in PMDD, weighed down by anxiety, or burdened by emotions you couldn't quite explain, I hope this poem helped you feel seen.

These experiences can feel incredibly isolating, yet they are often more common than we realize. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can discover is that someone else has felt the same way.

If this poem resonated with you, you'll find more reflections on depression, healing, motherhood, mental health, identity, and resilience throughout Shadow Confessions.

Explore Shadow Confessions here!

Until next time, dreamers,

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