Maria Shriver is taking a look back at the “brutal” end of her marriage with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ahead of the launch of her new poetry book, I Am Maria, the former journalist—who filed for divorce from her then-husband in 2011 after 25 years of marriage—shared rare comments about navigating the aftermath of her split.

In an exclusive excerpt shared by People on March 24, Shriver, now 69, revealed that the reflective book was a long time coming as she looked back at her life at 55. “I was in no emotional shape to write a book. I was barely able to get out of bed,” she wrote.

Shriver, who shares four kids—White Lotus actor Patrick, 31, as well as Katherine, 35, Christina, 33, and Christopher, 27—with Schwarzenegger, split from her ex-husband after finding out he’d fathered a child during an affair. While dealing with the end of her marriage and career, as well as the deaths of her parents in 2009 and 2011, the author revealed that she became “consumed with grief.”

“All hell seemed to break loose. My First Lady [of California] job came to an end. My father died. And then came another devastating, life-altering blow: my twenty-five-year-long marriage blew up,” she wrote in the emotional passage. “It broke my heart, it broke my spirit, it broke what was left of me.”

Shriver took a moment to thank her kids for the “grace, valor, and courage” they exhibited. “Everything about their world and the sanctity of their home got uprooted in an instant,” she explained.

The former first lady opened up about her grieving process, as she shared, “I was consumed with grief and wracked with confusion, anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety. I was unsure now of who I was, where I belonged. Honestly, it was brutal, and I was terrified.”

Shriver briefly touched on her “self-pity party,” which included visiting “therapists, healers, shamans, and psychics,” as well as spending time in a cloistered convent, before she realized she felt enough just being herself and by herself–concepts she’d struggled with growing up with the high expectations surrounding the Kennedy family.

“I’ve made lots of mistakes. One of them was tying my self-worth to my achievements,” she wrote. “Another big mistake was thinking that someone outside of me could guarantee my safety, my worth, and my peace.”

Shriver, who has kept her personal life out of the spotlight in recent years, added, “I’ve also had to come face to face with other misguided beliefs—about aging, about being alone. I used to believe that if you didn’t have a partner, you must be unworthy and unloveable. I’ve learned that nothing could be further from the truth.”

Schwarzenegger, whose divorce with Shriver was finalized in 2021, has previously spoken out about co-parenting his kids (as well as his grandchildren) with his ex-wife. “My chapter with Maria will continue on forever,” he told People in a 2023 interview. “Even though it’s a different relationship, there’s no reason for me to feel anything other than love for her.”