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I hope you had a good summer: my experience was different. That day we were planning to take a vacation, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, expecting him to have prompt but common surgery, which caused our travel plans had to be cancelled.

From this experience I gained insight valuable, all over again, about how challenging it is for me to feel bad when things take a turn. I’m not talking about life-altering traumas, but the more everyday, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – unless we can actually acknowledge them – will really weigh us down.

When we were meant to be on holiday but were not, I kept feeling a tug towards finding the positive: “I can {book a replacement trip|schedule another vacation|arrange a different getaway”; “At least we have {travel insurance|coverage for trips|protection for journeys”; “This’ll give me {something to write about|material for an article|content for a story”. But I never felt better, just a bit down. And then I would confront the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery required frequent agonising dressing changes, and there is a finite opportunity for an relaxing trip on the Belgian coast. So, no vacation. Just letdown and irritation, suffering and attention.

I know more serious issues can happen, it's merely a vacation, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I wanted was to be honest with myself. In those instances when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we talked about it instead, it felt like we were sharing an experience. Instead of being down and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve allowed myself all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to hostility and displeasure and aversion and wrath, which at least seemed authentic. At times, it even was feasible to enjoy our time at home together.

This recalled of a wish I sometimes notice in my counseling individuals, and that I have also witnessed in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could somehow reverse our unwanted experiences, like hitting a reverse switch. But that arrow only goes in reverse. Facing the reality that this is not possible and allowing the pain and fury for things not working out how we anticipated, rather than a insincere positive spin, can facilitate a change of current: from rejection and low mood, to progress and potential. Over time – and, of course, it needs duration – this can be profoundly impactful.

We think of depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a suppressing of rage and grief and frustration and delight and energy, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and liberty.

I have often found myself stuck in this desire to erase events, but my little one is supporting my evolution. As a first-time mom, I was at times overwhelmed by the incredible needs of my newborn. Not only the feeding – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again less than an hour after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the changing again before you’ve even finished the task you were changing. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – functionality combined with nurturing – are a solace and a tremendous privilege. Though they’re also, at moments, relentless and draining. What shocked me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the emotional demands.

I had assumed my most primary duty as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon understood that it was not possible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she required it. Her craving could seem insatiable; my supply could not arrive quickly, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to change her – but she despised being changed, and cried as if she were falling into a shadowy pit of misery. And while sometimes she seemed soothed by the hugs we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that no solution we provided could aid.

I soon discovered that my most crucial role as a mother was first to survive, and then to support her in managing the intense emotions caused by the impossibility of my guarding her from all distress. As she grew her ability to consume and process milk, she also had to develop a capacity to manage her sentiments and her pain when the milk didn’t come, or when she was suffering, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to develop alongside her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to guarantee smooth experiences, but to support in creating understanding to her feelings journey of things not going so well.

This was the difference, for her, between having someone who was trying to give her only pleasant sentiments, and instead being supported in building a ability to experience all feelings. It was the contrast, for me, between wanting to feel excellent about doing a perfect job as a ideal parent, and instead developing the capacity to endure my own imperfections in order to do a sufficiently well – and understand my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The contrast between my seeking to prevent her crying, and comprehending when she had to sob.

Now that we have grown through this together, I feel less keenly the urge to press reverse and alter our history into one where everything goes well. I find optimism in my sense of a ability evolving internally to understand that this is not possible, and to comprehend that, when I’m focused on striving to rearrange a trip, what I truly require is to sob.