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I wish you enjoyed a pleasant summer: mine was not. On the day we were planning to go on holiday, I was sitting in A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have urgent but routine surgery, which meant our getaway ideas had to be cancelled.

From this episode I realized a truth significant, all over again, about how challenging it is for me to acknowledge pain when things don't work out. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more routine, quietly devastating disappointments that – if we don't actually feel them – will significantly depress us.

When we were expected to be on holiday but weren't, I kept feeling a tug 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 remained low, just a bit down. And then I would bump up against the reality that this holiday really was gone: my husband’s surgery required frequent agonising dressing changes, and there is a short period for an enjoyable break on the Belgium's beaches. So, no holiday. Just discontent and annoyance, pain and care.

I know graver situations can happen, it's just a trip, an enviable dilemma to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I required was to be sincere with my feelings. In those instances when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we talked about it instead, it felt like we were sharing an experience. Instead of experiencing sadness 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 aversion and wrath, which at least seemed authentic. At times, it even turned out to appreciate our moments at home together.

This reminded me of a hope I sometimes notice in my counseling individuals, and that I have also seen in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could somehow erase our difficult moments, like pressing a reset button. But that option only points backwards. Facing the reality that this is impossible and allowing the pain and fury for things not working out how we hoped, rather than a false optimism, can enable a shift: from denial and depression, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be life-changing.

We view depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a suppressing of anger and sadness and disappointment and joy and vitality, and all the rest. The alternative to depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of honest emotional expression and freedom.

I have often found myself stuck in this urge to erase events, but my young child is supporting my evolution. As a new mother, I was at times burdened by the incredible needs of my infant. Not only the feeding – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the changing, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even finished the swap you were handling. These routine valuable duties among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a solace 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 psychological needs.

I had thought my most important job as a mother was to fulfill my infant's requirements. But I soon came to realise that it was impossible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her appetite could seem unmeetable; my nourishment could not arrive quickly, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she disliked being changed, and cried as if she were descending into a gloomy abyss of despair. And while sometimes she seemed soothed by the hugs we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that no solution we provided could aid.

I soon learned that my most important job as a mother was first to persevere, and then to help her digest the intense emotions provoked by the unattainability of my shielding her from all discomfort. As she grew her ability to take in and digest milk, she also had to develop a capacity to digest her emotions and her suffering when the supply was insufficient, or when she was hurting, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to grow through her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to support in creating understanding to her sentimental path of things not working out ideally.

This was the difference, for her, between experiencing someone who was seeking to offer her only good feelings, and instead being helped to grow a capacity to experience all feelings. It was the difference, for me, between wanting to feel wonderful about executing ideally as a perfect mother, and instead cultivating the skill to endure my own imperfections in order to do a sufficiently well – and grasp my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The difference between my seeking to prevent her crying, and recognizing when she required to weep.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel less keenly the desire to hit “undo” and rewrite our story into one where things are ideal. I find faith in my sense of a ability evolving internally to understand that this is not possible, and to comprehend that, when I’m focused on striving to reschedule a vacation, what I really need is to cry.