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I trust your a enjoyable summer: my experience was different. That day we were planning to go on holiday, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which meant our getaway ideas had to be cancelled.

From this situation I realized a truth important, all over again, about how hard it is for me to acknowledge pain when things go wrong. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more everyday, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – unless we can actually feel them – will significantly depress us.

When we were supposed to be on holiday but were not, I kept feeling a tug towards seeking optimism: “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 remained low, just a bit down. And then I would face the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery required frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a finite opportunity for an relaxing trip on the Belgian coast. So, no holiday. Just letdown and irritation, suffering and attention.

I know worse things 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 times when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we addressed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to appear happy, I’ve given myself permission all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to anger and frustration and hatred and rage, which at least felt real. At times, it even was feasible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This reminded me of a hope I sometimes notice in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also witnessed in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could in some way erase our difficult moments, like pressing a reset button. But that arrow only points backwards. Acknowledging the reality that this is not possible and embracing the sorrow and anger for things not happening how we hoped, rather than a insincere positive spin, can enable a shift: from avoidance and sadness, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be life-changing.

We view depression as experiencing negativity – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a repressing of anger and sadness and disappointment and joy and energy, and all the rest. The alternative to depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of honest emotional expression and release.

I have frequently found myself caught in this urge to click “undo”, but my little one is assisting me in moving past it. As a recent parent, I was at times overwhelmed by the amazing requirements of my infant. Not only the nourishing – sometimes for a lengthy period at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even completed 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, unceasing and exhausting. What surprised me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the psychological needs.

I had believed my most important job as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon realized that it was unfeasible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she required it. Her hunger could seem insatiable; my milk could not come fast enough, or it came too fast. And then we needed to change her – but she disliked being changed, and cried as if she were falling into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed comforted by the embraces we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that no comfort we gave could help.

I soon learned that my most crucial role as a mother was first to endure, and then to help her digest the intense emotions provoked by the impossibility of my protecting her from all unease. As she enhanced her skill to take in and digest milk, she also had to cultivate a skill to digest her emotions and her suffering when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was suffering, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to assist in finding significance to her sentimental path of things not going so well.

This was the contrast, for her, between experiencing someone who was trying to give her only positive emotions, and instead being supported in building a skill to experience all feelings. It was the difference, for me, between wanting to feel wonderful about performing flawlessly as a ideal parent, and instead cultivating the skill to endure my own shortcomings in order to do a adequately performed – and comprehend my daughter’s disappointment and anger with me. The contrast between my trying to stop her crying, and comprehending when she needed to cry.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel less keenly the urge to hit “undo” and alter our history into one where everything goes well. I find optimism in my feeling of a skill evolving internally to acknowledge that this is not possible, and to comprehend that, when I’m busy trying to rearrange a trip, what I really need is to cry.