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I wish you enjoyed a pleasant summer: my experience was different. On the day we were supposed to be go on holiday, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, waiting for him to have prompt but common surgery, which resulted in our getaway ideas were forced to be cancelled.

From this episode I gained insight important, all over again, about how challenging it is for me to acknowledge pain when things go wrong. I’m not talking about life-altering traumas, but the more everyday, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – unless we can actually feel them – will significantly depress us.

When we were expected to be on holiday but were not, I kept experiencing a pull towards looking for silver linings: “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 didn't improve, just a bit down. And then I would face the reality that this holiday really was gone: my husband’s surgery required frequent painful bandage replacements, and there is a finite opportunity for an enjoyable break on the shores of Belgium. So, no getaway. Just disappointment and frustration, pain and care.

I know more serious issues can happen, it's merely a vacation, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I needed was to be truthful to myself. In those times when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve given myself permission all sorts of difficult sentiments, including but not limited to bitterness and resentment and loathing and fury, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even turned out to appreciate our moments at home together.

This brought to mind 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 undo our negative events, like clicking “undo”. But that arrow only goes in reverse. Facing the reality that this is unattainable and accepting the pain and fury for things not working out how we anticipated, rather than a insincere positive spin, can promote a transformation: from rejection and low mood, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be profoundly impactful.

We think of depression as being sad – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a pressing down of frustration and sorrow and letdown and happiness and energy, and all the rest. The alternative to depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and liberty.

I have often found myself caught in this urge to reverse things, but my little one is assisting me in moving past it. As a new mother, I was at times overwhelmed by the amazing requirements of my newborn. Not only the nursing – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even completed the swap you were doing. These everyday important activities among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a reassurance and a significant blessing. Though they’re also, at moments, relentless and draining. What shocked me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the feelings requirements.

I had believed my most primary duty as a mother was to fulfill my infant's requirements. But I soon realized that it was unfeasible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her craving could seem endless; my nourishment could not arrive quickly, or it came too fast. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she hated being changed, and cried as if she were descending into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the embraces we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that no comfort we gave could assist.

I soon realized that my most crucial role as a mother was first to persevere, and then to help her digest the overwhelming feelings caused by the infeasibility of my protecting her from all unease. As she grew her ability to take in and digest milk, she also had to build an ability to digest her emotions and her distress when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was hurting, 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 ensure everything was perfect, but to support in creating understanding to her feelings journey of things not going so well.

This was the contrast, for her, between having someone who was trying to give her only good feelings, and instead being assisted in developing a ability to feel every emotion. It was the difference, for me, between wanting to feel wonderful about executing ideally as a flawless caregiver, and instead building the ability to tolerate my own imperfections in order to do a adequately performed – and understand my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The difference between my seeking to prevent her crying, and comprehending when she required to weep.

Now that we have evolved past this together, I feel less keenly the wish to click erase and change our narrative into one where things are ideal. I find faith in my feeling of a ability growing inside me to recognise that this is impossible, and to understand that, when I’m busy trying to rebook a holiday, what I truly require is to sob.