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I wish you enjoyed a good summer: I did not. The very day we were scheduled to take a vacation, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, waiting for him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which meant our travel plans needed to be cancelled.

From this situation I gained insight important, all over again, about how challenging it is for me to feel bad when things go wrong. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more everyday, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – if we don't actually acknowledge them – will really weigh us down.

When we were expected to be on holiday but weren't, 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 down. And then I would bump up against the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery required frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a short period for an relaxing trip on the Belgium's beaches. So, no holiday. Just disappointment and frustration, pain and care.

I know graver situations can happen, it's just a trip, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I required was to be honest with myself. In those instances when I was able to cease resisting the disappointment and we talked about it instead, it felt like we were sharing an experience. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve granted myself all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to anger and frustration and aversion and wrath, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even became possible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This recalled of a hope I sometimes notice in my counseling individuals, and that I have also witnessed in myself as a patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could perhaps undo our negative events, like hitting a reverse switch. But that option only goes in reverse. Confronting the reality that this is unattainable and accepting the grief and rage for things not happening how we hoped, rather than a false optimism, can promote a transformation: from rejection and low mood, to progress and potential. Over time – and, of course, it needs duration – this can be profoundly impactful.

We view depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a pressing down of anger and sadness and frustration and delight and energy, and all the rest. The alternative to depression is not happiness, but experiencing all emotions, a kind of genuine feeling freedom and freedom.

I have often found myself stuck in this wish to reverse things, but my little one is helping me to grow out of it. As a first-time mom, I was at times burdened by the incredible needs of my baby. Not only the nursing – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again less than an hour after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even ended the change you were handling. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a reassurance and a great honor. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What astounded me the most – aside from the lack of rest – were the feelings requirements.

I had thought my most primary duty as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon realized that it was not possible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her appetite could seem unmeetable; my nourishment could not come fast enough, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to swap her diaper – but she despised being changed, and cried as if she were falling 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 survive, and then to assist her process the powerful sentiments triggered by the unattainability of my guarding her from all discomfort. As she developed her capacity to take in and digest milk, she also had to develop a capacity to manage her sentiments and her distress 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, loathing, discontent, need. My job was not to make things go well, but to help bring meaning to her sentimental path of things being less than perfect.

This was the contrast, for her, between being with someone who was attempting to provide her only good feelings, and instead being supported in building a skill to experience all feelings. It was the distinction, for me, between wanting to feel wonderful about performing flawlessly as a perfect mother, and instead developing the capacity to tolerate my own imperfections in order to do a good enough job – and understand my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The contrast between my attempting to halt her crying, and understanding when she required to weep.

Now that we have evolved past this together, I feel not as strongly the wish to press reverse and change our narrative into one where everything goes well. I find hope in my sense of a capacity evolving internally to understand that this is unattainable, and to understand that, when I’m focused on striving to reschedule a vacation, what I really need is to cry.