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I hope you had a enjoyable summer: mine was not. The very day we were supposed to be go on holiday, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have prompt but common surgery, which resulted in our getaway ideas needed to be cancelled.

From this episode I realized a truth important, all over again, about how challenging it is for me to feel bad when things don't work out. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more common, subtly crushing disappointments that – if we don't actually acknowledge them – will significantly depress us.

When we were meant to be on holiday but were not, I kept sensing an urge 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 depressed. 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 enjoyable break on the shores of Belgium. So, no vacation. Just discontent and annoyance, pain and care.

I know more serious issues can happen, it's just a trip, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I wanted was to be truthful to myself. In those instances when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we addressed it instead, it felt like we were sharing an experience. 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 hostility and displeasure and aversion and wrath, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even became possible to value our days at home together.

This reminded me of a wish I sometimes observe in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also experienced in myself as a patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could somehow undo our negative events, like pressing a reset button. But that arrow only looks to the past. Confronting the reality that this is not possible and embracing the sorrow and anger for things not happening how we expected, rather than a false optimism, can facilitate a change of current: from denial and depression, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it requires patience – this can be transformative.

We view depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a pressing down 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 genuine feeling freedom and liberty.

I have repeatedly found myself caught in this desire to erase events, but my little one is supporting my evolution. As a recent parent, I was at times overwhelmed by the incredible needs of my newborn. Not only the nursing – sometimes for a lengthy period at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the changing again before you’ve even finished the change you were doing. These routine valuable duties among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a comfort and a significant blessing. Though they’re also, at moments, unceasing and exhausting. What shocked me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the feelings requirements.

I had assumed my most primary duty as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon came to realise that it was unfeasible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her hunger could seem endless; my nourishment could not come fast enough, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to change her – but she despised being changed, and sobbed as if she were plunging into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the hugs we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that nothing we had to offer could assist.

I soon discovered that my most crucial role as a mother was first to endure, and then to help her digest the powerful sentiments caused by the unattainability of my guarding her from all unease. As she grew her ability to ingest and absorb milk, she also had to develop a capacity to manage her sentiments and her pain when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was suffering, or any other hard and bewildering experience – and I had to grow through 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 emotional experience of things not working out ideally.

This was the difference, 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 desiring to experience wonderful about doing a perfect job as a flawless caregiver, and instead developing the capacity to endure my own shortcomings in order to do a adequately performed – and comprehend my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The distinction between my attempting to halt her crying, and comprehending when she needed to cry.

Now that we have grown through this together, I feel not as strongly the wish to hit “undo” and alter our history into one where everything goes well. I find optimism in my feeling of a ability developing within to recognise that this is unattainable, and to understand that, when I’m occupied with attempting to rearrange a trip, what I truly require is to weep.