This Is Me Trying: Mental Health, Shame, and the Courage to Keep Going
Why this song hits
Some songs do not just describe a feeling. They name it. And when a feeling finally has language, it can feel exposing, unsettling, and deeply often relieving all at once.
In This Is Me Trying, Taylor Swift captures what emotional exhaustion and mental health struggle actually feel like… Taylor gives voice to a kind of emotional exhaustion that many people uncomfortably carry. She sounds like someone who is still moving, still showing up, still functioning, but doing so while holding an invisible weight that never fully lets up.
I will simply call her Taylor from here, and I will use short lyric quotes as section titles so you can follow the emotional thread of her story, and notice where it may intersect with your own or someone you care about.
If this melancholy song grabs you, it is often because you have lived at least one of these experiences:
You are trying, but no one seems to see how hard it actually is.
You are doing “fine,” but you do not feel fine.
You want relief, and you want a way forward, not just survival.
This is not about judging Taylor, or you. It is about naming what this kind of heaviness feels like, understanding why it can take over your inner world, and learning how to move forward with compassion instead of shame. Before Taylor even names what changed, she describes the moment when life itself becomes hard to inhabit. Let’s start there.
What emotional exhaustion & rawness actually feel like
“I feel like an open wound…”
Taylor is carrying pain that is not abstract. It is close to the surface, tender, reactive, and real. When you feel like an open wound, life has no emotional padding. Everything brushes up against raw nerves.
It can feel like:
Your emotional skin is thin, and everything hurts more.
Small stressors register as major threats.
Ordinary days feel exhausting before they even begin.
Wounds need care and time. They do not heal by being yelled at, minimized, or dismissed. They heal through safety, patience, and steady compassion. When you feel this raw, it makes sense to crave a place, or a person, that feels safe. For many people, therapy becomes that container when emotions start to feel too big to manage alone.
When the nervous system is overwhelmed
“...hard to be anywhere”
Taylor describes the moment when the whole world begins to feel overwhelming. At first, it may just be social exhaustion. Over time, it becomes something broader. It is not only hard to be around people. It becomes hard to be anywhere at all. As the saying goes, from Jon Kabat Zinn, “Wherever you go, there you are.” When pain travels inside you, no environment offers full escape.
Taylor may notice she is:
Canceling plans, then canceling everything.
Sleeping too much or not enough.
Losing interest in things that once mattered.
When life starts shrinking, the mind often tries to explain it, often poorly. That explanation can quickly turn into a harsh story about weakness, failure, or laziness. But what if withdrawal is not a flaw, but an overactive nervous system strategy? Sometimes the body pulls inward because it needs rest, safety, and regulation, not pressure. What do you want?
When life changes faster than your nervous system can keep up
“...hard time adjusting”
Now Taylor begins trying to understand how she arrived here.
She is not only tired. She is disoriented, frankly confused. Life changed faster than her nervous system could adapt, leaving her emotionally off-balance and physically braced.
Taylor may notice:
Becoming overwhelmed by small tasks.
Slower thinking and decision-making.
Emotional exhaustion that lingers even after rest.
You can be back at work, parenting, socializing, and functioning, and still feel like you are walking through wet cement. Like Taylor, you are technically moving, but everything takes more effort than it should. And that is deeply frustrating, I know.
When adjustment feels this heavy, it becomes easy to believe that you are the problem. But often, the problem is not who you are, it is what you are carrying.
Why “it’s all in your head” is a harmful myth
“...all of my cages were mental”
Taylor reflects on the kind of comment that shuts people down instead of helping them open up. It may have come from a boss, a parent, a partner, or someone well-meaning who did not understand the depth of her pain.
Being told that your struggle is “all in your head” sucks. It dismisses your personal lived experience, emotional reality, and nervous system responses that developed for protection. Thoughts can trap you, but those thoughts are rarely random. They grow from losses, stress, trauma, and repeated emotional injuries.
“Just think positive” is a phrase. It is not a plan.
If the cage is mental, the key is not willpower. The key is understanding how your mind and body learned to protect you, and how to gently update overactive protections so they no longer over do it. Real healing does not come from forcing change or discipline. It comes from learning safety, building awareness, and creating new emotional pathways that actually fit your life. We can collaborate with you on that.
When shame turns struggle into a story about who you are
“...wasted like all my potential”
Now Taylor’s inner critic takes the mic.
Then shame rushes in and tries to turn struggle into a verdict about her character. The Swifties won't like that and you won't either.
This is one of the cruelest psychological patterns humans experience. Pain becomes your identity. But it doesn't need to be that way. Therapy should never reinforce that narrative. Healing work is meant to soften, and possibly extinguish the shame, not deepen it. You are not broken. Your sensitivity, depth, and resilience have been stretched too thin.
Longing, safety, and what you are really missing
“...all I want is you”
Taylor’s pain is not only about stress. It is about longing. And longing can feel all-encompassing and overwhelming.
This yearning may be for:
A specific relationship.
A version of life that once felt safe.
To be understood without having to explain everything.
Sometimes the deepest ache is not missing someone. It is missing how you felt when you believed you were safe. Taylor desires you really pay attention to: “I just wanted you to know / that this is me trying.” She repeats it often because she wants to be heard and be seen. Those desires are deeply human.
Here is the hard part. Rumination rarely helps, yet most of us get trapped inside it. When thoughts loop, the nervous system stays activated, keeping pain alive long after the moment has passed. The mind keeps replaying scenes, hoping to find resolution, but often creating more exhaustion instead.
When regret keeps the nervous system stuck in the past
“...a lot of regrets”
Taylor replays scenes, choices, and words, like rewinding a moment that cannot change. Regret can hold many emotional layers:
Guilt about what happened.
Grief about who you were before things changed.
Pain about the support you did not ask for.
While regret hurts, it also points to something meaningful. It reveals that your values are still alive. You care. You wanted better. That matters.
Trying as endurance, not perfection
“...at least I’m trying”
This is not a motivational slogan. It is an exhausting truth.
Trying can mean:
“I am still here.”
“I am still fighting for what matters to me.”
“I do not have a perfect plan, but I am showing up anyway.”
Therapy can help turn effort into something sustainable by:
Reducing shame so you have more emotional energy.
Creating practical tools that work outside the session.
Turning vague intention into realistic steps.
Choosing awareness over fear
“...could’ve followed my fears all the way down”
This is the fork in the road.
Taylor is not saying she followed fear. She is saying she could have, and that awareness matters. She wants something different.
That fork often shows up in small moments:
You want to numb, but pause long enough to breathe.
Fear still pulls, but it is no longer fully in control.
Choosing truth over numbing
“...pouring out my heart to a stranger / didn’t pour the whiskey”
Taylor makes another crucial decision and chooses truth over numbing. Good for her.
Sometimes the safest person to tell the truth to is someone outside your daily life. A therapeutic relationship is designed to be steady, supportive, and contained. You do not have to protect the other person from your emotions.
Numbing can quiet pain quickly, but it rarely brings resolution. Short-term relief often leads to longer-term anxiety, shame, and emotional exhaustion. Choosing truth, even once, builds emotional strength and self trust.
What this leaves you with
If Taylor’s story resonates, it does not mean you are broken. It usually means your mind and body have been carrying something heavy for a long time.
Trying is not weakness. It is evidence of endurance, hope, and deeply held values.
Sometimes trying looks like surviving the day. Sometimes it looks like reaching for support. And sometimes it looks like letting yourself…rest.
How Foothills Psychotherapy can support you
At Foothills Psychotherapy, the goal is not to judge your coping. The goal is to help you understand what has you stuck, reduce overwhelm and shame, and build tools that work in real life. Depending on your needs, therapy may include talk therapy, Brainspotting, and EMDR-informed trauma work.
To take the next step:
If you are feeling unsafe right now
If you are thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 in the U.S. for immediate support.
"This Is Me Trying" by Taylor Swift, from her 2020 album folklore, is published under a global agreement with Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG).
