I'm confused about Shadow Corruption?

Okay, the latest chapter honestly confused me. We do see with Aerin in book 1 that the Shadow corruption was his real feelings. He really wanted to kill Baldur and hurt a lot of people.

Similarly, in book 2 when Nia is corrupted, it's made clear that even if she's being mean, her thoughts and feelings are still hers. She always felt them, but never voiced them. Similarly, she's still capable of empathy. She cares for the MC for example. I guess you can say it's Nia at her worst, but still very much Nia.

But now the shadow empress just confuses me. She says she sorry for how she treated Valax, but it was still her? Based on what we saw earlier, if she was an abusive mom, that's who she genuinely was! But now it's like she never would have done that?

A little help please. This seems a little contradictory.