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I wish you enjoyed a enjoyable summer: mine was not. That day we were scheduled to go on holiday, I was sitting in A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have prompt but common surgery, which resulted in our vacation arrangements needed to be cancelled.

From this episode I gained insight important, all over again, about how hard it is for me to acknowledge pain when things don't work out. I’m not talking about life-altering traumas, but the more routine, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – unless we can actually acknowledge them – will really weigh us down.

When we were expected to be on holiday but could not be, 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 blue. And then I would face the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery required frequent painful bandage replacements, and there is a finite opportunity for an relaxing trip on the shores of Belgium. So, no holiday. Just discontent and annoyance, hurt and nurturing.

I know worse things can happen, it's merely a vacation, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I used that reasoning too. But what I needed was to be sincere with my feelings. In those instances when I was able to cease resisting the disappointment and we addressed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of being down and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve given myself permission all sorts of unwanted feelings, including but not limited to bitterness and resentment and loathing and fury, which at least seemed authentic. At times, it even became possible to value our days at home together.

This reminded me of a hope I sometimes observe in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also witnessed in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could in some way undo our negative events, like pressing a reset button. But that option only looks to the past. Facing the reality that this is impossible and allowing the grief and rage for things not working out how we hoped, rather than a false optimism, can facilitate a change of current: from rejection and low mood, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be life-changing.

We view depression as being sad – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a pressing down of anger and sadness and disappointment and joy and vitality, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but feeling whatever is there, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and liberty.

I have frequently found myself trapped in this urge to erase events, but my toddler is assisting me in moving past it. As a recent parent, I was at times overwhelmed by the incredible needs of my infant. Not only the nourishing – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the changing, and then the changing again before you’ve even finished the swap you were changing. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a reassurance and a significant blessing. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What shocked me the most – aside from the lack of rest – were the psychological needs.

I had thought my most key role as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon came to realise that it was unfeasible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her hunger could seem unmeetable; my supply could not be produced rapidly, or it flowed excessively. And then we needed to change her – but she disliked being changed, and sobbed as if she were descending into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that no comfort we gave could aid.

I soon realized that my most key responsibility as a mother was first to survive, and then to support her in managing the overwhelming feelings provoked by the impossibility of my guarding her from all distress. As she enhanced her skill to ingest and absorb milk, she also had to build an ability 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 evolve with her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, hatred, disappointment, hunger. My job was not to guarantee smooth experiences, but to support in creating understanding to her feelings journey of things not working out ideally.

This was the distinction, for her, between having someone who was attempting to provide her only good feelings, and instead being helped to grow a ability to experience all feelings. It was the distinction, for me, between wanting to feel wonderful about performing flawlessly as a flawless caregiver, and instead developing the capacity to accept my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a good enough job – and comprehend my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The contrast between my trying to stop her crying, and recognizing when she required to weep.

Now that we have grown through this together, I feel not as strongly the urge to press reverse and rewrite our story into one where all is perfect. I find faith in my sense of a ability developing within to acknowledge that this is unattainable, and to comprehend that, when I’m occupied with attempting to reschedule a vacation, what I really need is to sob.