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I wish you enjoyed a good summer: mine was not. The very day we were supposed to be travel for leisure, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, expecting him to have prompt but common surgery, which caused our vacation arrangements had to be cancelled.

From this situation I gained insight valuable, all over again, about how hard it is for me to feel bad when things take a turn. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more common, quietly devastating disappointments that – if we don't actually experience them – will truly burden us.

When we were meant to be on holiday but could not be, I kept sensing an urge 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 didn't improve, just a bit blue. And then I would face the reality that this holiday really was gone: my husband’s surgery required frequent agonising dressing changes, and there is a limited time window for an pleasant vacation on the shores of Belgium. So, no getaway. Just letdown and irritation, suffering and attention.

I know more serious issues can happen, it's just a trip, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I used that reasoning too. But what I required was to be honest with myself. In those moments when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we talked about it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of experiencing sadness and trying to smile, I’ve given myself permission 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 appreciate our moments at home together.

This reminded me of a desire I sometimes see in my therapy clients, and that I have also witnessed in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could somehow erase our difficult moments, like hitting a reverse switch. But that option only points backwards. Facing the reality that this is not possible and accepting the pain and fury for things not happening how we hoped, rather than a dishonest kind of “reframing”, can enable a shift: from avoidance and sadness, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it needs duration – this can be transformative.

We think of depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of deadening of all emotions, a repressing of frustration and sorrow 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 freedom.

I have frequently found myself stuck in this wish to reverse things, but my little one is supporting my evolution. As a first-time mom, I was at times burdened by the incredible needs of my infant. Not only the feeding – sometimes for a lengthy period at a time, and then again under 60 minutes after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the changing again before you’ve even ended the swap you were handling. These everyday important activities among so many others – functionality combined with nurturing – are a solace and a tremendous privilege. Though they’re also, at moments, unceasing and exhausting. What astounded me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the feelings requirements.

I had believed my most primary duty as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon understood that it was unfeasible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she required it. Her craving could seem insatiable; my milk could not be produced rapidly, or it flowed excessively. And then we needed to change her – but she disliked being changed, and cried as if she were plunging into a gloomy abyss of despair. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the hugs we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were lost to us, that nothing we had to offer could help.

I soon realized that my most key responsibility as a mother was first to endure, and then to help her digest the powerful sentiments triggered by the infeasibility of my guarding her from all unease. As she grew her ability to take in and digest 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 hurting, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to develop alongside her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to make things go well, but to assist in finding significance to her emotional experience 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 supported in building a ability to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the difference, for me, between wanting to feel wonderful about executing ideally as a ideal parent, and instead developing the capacity to accept my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a adequately performed – and understand my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The distinction between my seeking to prevent her crying, and comprehending when she required to weep.

Now that we have grown through this together, I feel not as strongly the desire to click erase and change our narrative into one where everything goes well. I find optimism in my awareness of a skill evolving internally to understand that this is unattainable, and to realize that, when I’m busy trying to reschedule a vacation, what I truly require is to sob.