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I wish you enjoyed a good summer: I did not. On the day we were scheduled to take a vacation, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, expecting him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which resulted in our vacation arrangements had to be cancelled.

From this episode I realized a truth significant, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to acknowledge pain when things go wrong. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more common, quietly devastating disappointments that – if we don't actually feel them – will really weigh us down.

When we were meant to be on holiday but weren't, I kept experiencing a pull 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 confront the reality that this holiday really was gone: my husband’s surgery involved frequent painful bandage replacements, and there is a short period for an enjoyable break on the shores of Belgium. So, no getaway. Just disappointment and frustration, hurt and nurturing.

I know worse things can happen, it's merely a vacation, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I needed was to be sincere with my feelings. In those moments when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were sharing an experience. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to smile, I’ve allowed myself all sorts of unwanted feelings, including but not limited to anger and frustration and hatred and rage, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even turned out to value our days at home together.

This recalled of a wish I sometimes observe in my therapy clients, and that I have also seen in myself as a patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could perhaps erase our difficult moments, like pressing a reset button. But that option only goes in reverse. Confronting the reality that this is unattainable and embracing the pain and fury for things not happening how we expected, rather than a insincere positive spin, 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 transformative.

We think of depression as experiencing negativity – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a pressing down of frustration and sorrow and frustration and delight and life force, and all the rest. The substitute for depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and freedom.

I have repeatedly found myself stuck in this desire to erase events, but my toddler is supporting my evolution. As a new mother, I was at times burdened by the astonishing demands of my newborn. Not only the feeding – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again under 60 minutes after that – and not only the outfit alterations, 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 – functionality combined with nurturing – are a solace and a significant blessing. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What shocked me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the psychological needs.

I had assumed my most primary duty as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon understood that it was not possible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her hunger could seem unmeetable; my milk could not be produced rapidly, or it came too fast. And then we needed to swap her diaper – but she despised being changed, and wept 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 lost to us, that no solution we provided could assist.

I soon realized that my most important job as a mother was first to persevere, and then to support her in managing the intense emotions caused by the unattainability of my protecting her from all unease. As she developed her capacity to take in and digest milk, she also had to develop a capacity to process her feelings and her distress when the supply was insufficient, or when she was hurting, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) frustration, rage, despair, hatred, disappointment, hunger. My job was not to make things go well, but to assist in finding significance to her sentimental path of things being less than perfect.

This was the difference, for her, between having someone who was seeking to offer her only good feelings, and instead being supported in building a capacity to experience all feelings. It was the distinction, for me, between desiring to experience excellent about doing a perfect job as a perfect mother, and instead cultivating the skill to endure my own shortcomings in order to do a sufficiently well – and understand my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The distinction between my attempting to halt her crying, and comprehending when she had to sob.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel not as strongly the desire to hit “undo” and rewrite our story into one where things are ideal. I find faith in my awareness of a skill evolving internally to recognise that this is not possible, and to comprehend that, when I’m focused on striving to rearrange a trip, what I actually want is to cry.