Overwhelm- Whenever something becomes too much to handle. Ex. The amount of work they were giving me was overwhelming, there's no way I could finish it all! Ex. I was overwhelmed with grief when my dog died, I cried for days. Ex. The soldiers were able to overwhelm the defenses of their enemies, victory was assured.

overwhelm - verb overwhelming - adjective overwhelmed - adjective Overwhelming and overwhelmed are participle adjectives, which means that they look like the present participle and past participle (verbs) but are really adjectives. They are NOT interchangeable and are used in different ways. This is how I explain it to my students: I was overwhelmed because the amount of homework was overwhelming. -ed form is the effect or the emotion -ing form is the cause or the situation

@Teacher Jan - excellent answer - bravo !!