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I trust your a pleasant summer: mine was not. On the day we were supposed to be take a vacation, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, waiting for him to have prompt but common surgery, which resulted in our travel plans needed to be cancelled.

From this situation I gained insight significant, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to acknowledge pain when things go wrong. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more common, gently heartbreaking 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 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 didn't improve, just a bit depressed. And then I would face the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery necessitated frequent agonising dressing changes, and there is a limited time window for an relaxing trip on the shores of Belgium. So, no holiday. Just letdown and irritation, suffering and attention.

I know more serious issues can happen, it's just a trip, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I needed was to be truthful to myself. In those instances when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we talked about it instead, it felt like we were facing it as a team. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve allowed myself all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to bitterness and resentment and hatred and rage, which at least appeared genuine. 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 witnessed in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could perhaps erase our difficult moments, like hitting a reverse switch. But that button only looks to the past. Confronting the reality that this is impossible and embracing the grief and rage for things not happening how we expected, rather than a insincere positive spin, can enable a shift: from rejection and low mood, to progress and potential. Over time – and, of course, it needs duration – this can be profoundly impactful.

We think of depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of deadening of all emotions, a repressing of anger and sadness and disappointment and joy and life force, and all the rest. The substitute for 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 little one is assisting me in moving past it. As a recent parent, I was at times swamped by the astonishing demands of my newborn. Not only the feeding – 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 ended the change you were handling. These everyday important activities among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a comfort and a tremendous privilege. Though they’re also, at moments, relentless and draining. What surprised me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the feelings requirements.

I had thought my most primary duty as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon came to realise that it was unfeasible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her hunger could seem unmeetable; my supply could not be produced rapidly, or it came too fast. And then we needed to swap her diaper – but she despised being changed, and sobbed as if she were descending into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were separated from us, that no solution we provided could help.

I soon learned that my most key responsibility as a mother was first to persevere, and then to support her in managing the intense emotions provoked by the impossibility of my shielding her from all discomfort. As she grew her ability to take in and digest milk, she also had to cultivate a skill to manage her sentiments and her pain when the milk didn’t come, or when she was in pain, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to develop alongside her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, hatred, disappointment, hunger. My job was not to guarantee smooth experiences, but to support in creating understanding to her feelings journey of things not going so well.

This was the distinction, for her, between having someone who was seeking to offer her only good feelings, and instead being helped to grow a skill to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the distinction, for me, between wanting to feel wonderful about performing flawlessly as a perfect mother, and instead cultivating the skill to accept my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a good enough job – and understand my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The contrast between my seeking to prevent her crying, and comprehending when she had to sob.

Now that we have evolved past this together, I feel reduced the urge to click erase and alter our history into one where all is perfect. I find hope in my awareness of a ability developing within to acknowledge that this is not possible, and to realize that, when I’m occupied with attempting to rearrange a trip, what I really need is to sob.