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I trust your a good summer: mine was not. That day we were planning to go on holiday, I was sitting in A&E with my husband, expecting him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which meant our getaway ideas needed to be cancelled.

From this experience I learned something important, all over again, about how hard it is for me to acknowledge pain when things go wrong. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more routine, quietly devastating disappointments that – without the ability to actually feel them – will truly burden us.

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 face the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery involved frequent agonising dressing changes, and there is a short period for an relaxing trip on the Belgium's beaches. So, no getaway. Just discontent and annoyance, suffering and attention.

I know worse things can happen, it's just a trip, an enviable dilemma to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I required was to be honest with myself. In those times when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were facing it as a team. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to smile, I’ve granted myself all sorts of difficult sentiments, including but not limited to anger and frustration and hatred and rage, which at least seemed authentic. At times, it even became possible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This reminded me of a desire I sometimes see in my therapy clients, and that I have also seen in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could perhaps 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 expected, rather than a insincere positive spin, can promote a transformation: from rejection and low mood, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it needs duration – this can be transformative.

We consider depression as experiencing negativity – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a repressing of frustration and sorrow and disappointment and joy and energy, and all the rest. The substitute for depression is not happiness, but feeling whatever is there, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and liberty.

I have frequently found myself stuck in this urge to click “undo”, but my little one is supporting my evolution. As a first-time mom, I was at times overwhelmed by the incredible needs of my baby. Not only the nourishing – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again under 60 minutes after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the doing it once more before you’ve even finished the task you were handling. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a solace and a great honor. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What astounded me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the feelings requirements.

I had believed my most key role 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 needed it. Her craving could seem endless; my supply could not be produced rapidly, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to change her – but she despised being changed, and cried as if she were descending into a shadowy pit of misery. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the hugs we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were lost to us, that no comfort we gave could aid.

I soon discovered that my most key responsibility as a mother was first to survive, and then to help her digest the overwhelming feelings provoked by the infeasibility of my protecting her from all unease. As she grew her ability to ingest and absorb milk, she also had to cultivate a skill to process her feelings and her suffering when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was in pain, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, hatred, disappointment, hunger. My job was not to make things go well, but to assist in finding significance to her feelings journey of things being less than perfect.

This was the contrast, for her, between being with someone who was attempting to provide her only pleasant sentiments, and instead being supported in building a ability to feel every emotion. It was the distinction, for me, between desiring to experience excellent about performing flawlessly as a ideal parent, and instead developing the capacity to accept my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a good enough job – and comprehend my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The distinction between my attempting to halt her crying, and understanding when she had to sob.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel less keenly the desire to hit “undo” and change our narrative into one where all is perfect. I find optimism in my awareness of a ability evolving internally to recognise that this is unattainable, and to comprehend that, when I’m occupied with attempting to rebook a holiday, what I truly require is to sob.