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I hope you had a enjoyable summer: my experience was different. On the day we were scheduled to go on holiday, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, waiting for him to have prompt but common surgery, which resulted in our travel plans were forced 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 don't work out. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more routine, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – if we don't actually feel them – will significantly depress us.

When we were meant to be on holiday but could not be, 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 confront the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery involved frequent agonising dressing changes, and there is a finite opportunity for an relaxing trip on the Belgium's beaches. So, no vacation. Just disappointment and frustration, suffering and attention.

I know worse things can happen, it's just a trip, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I needed was to be sincere with my feelings. In those times when I was able to cease resisting the disappointment and we talked about it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve allowed myself all sorts of unwanted feelings, including but not limited to anger and frustration and loathing and fury, which at least seemed authentic. At times, it even became possible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This reminded me of a hope I sometimes notice in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also experienced in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could somehow reverse our unwanted experiences, like hitting a reverse switch. But that arrow only goes in reverse. Facing the reality that this is unattainable and accepting the sorrow and anger for things not working out how we anticipated, rather than a insincere positive spin, can facilitate a change of current: from avoidance and sadness, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be life-changing.

We think of depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a pressing down of frustration and sorrow and disappointment and joy and life force, and all the rest. The substitute for depression is not happiness, but feeling whatever is there, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and release.

I have often found myself caught in this urge to reverse things, but my toddler is helping me to grow out of it. As a first-time mom, I was at times overwhelmed by the incredible needs of my newborn. Not only the nursing – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the changing, and then the doing it once more before you’ve even ended the task you were handling. 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, relentless and draining. What astounded me the most – aside from the lack of rest – were the psychological needs.

I had assumed my most key role as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon understood that it was impossible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she required it. Her hunger could seem unmeetable; my milk could not come fast enough, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to swap her diaper – but she despised being changed, and wept as if she were plunging into a gloomy abyss of despair. And while sometimes she seemed soothed by the cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were lost to us, that nothing we had to offer could assist.

I soon discovered that my most crucial role as a mother was first to persevere, and then to support her in managing the overwhelming feelings triggered by the infeasibility of my shielding her from all discomfort. As she grew her ability to ingest and absorb milk, she also had to build an ability to process her feelings and her suffering when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was suffering, 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 guarantee smooth experiences, but to help bring meaning to her feelings journey of things not going so well.

This was the difference, for her, between experiencing someone who was seeking to offer her only positive emotions, and instead being assisted in developing a skill to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the difference, for me, between aiming to have wonderful about performing flawlessly as a perfect mother, and instead cultivating the skill to endure my own imperfections in order to do a adequately performed – and comprehend my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The contrast between my trying to stop her crying, and comprehending when she required to weep.

Now that we have evolved past this together, I feel reduced the urge to hit “undo” and change our narrative into one where all is perfect. I find faith in my sense of a capacity developing within to recognise that this is impossible, and to comprehend that, when I’m occupied with attempting to reschedule a vacation, what I truly require is to sob.