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I trust your a enjoyable summer: my experience was different. The very day we were planning to go on holiday, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have urgent but routine surgery, which meant our vacation arrangements had to be cancelled.

From this situation I realized a truth valuable, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to experience sadness when things go wrong. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more common, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – without the ability to actually acknowledge them – will significantly depress us.

When we were meant to be on holiday but could not be, 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 confront 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 pleasant vacation on the shores of Belgium. So, no getaway. Just letdown and irritation, pain and care.

I know worse things can happen, it's merely a vacation, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I used that reasoning too. But what I required was to be sincere with my feelings. In those times when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we addressed it instead, it felt like we were sharing an experience. Instead of being down and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve granted myself all sorts of difficult sentiments, including but not limited to hostility and displeasure and loathing and fury, which at least seemed authentic. At times, it even became possible to enjoy our time at home together.

This reminded me of a hope I sometimes notice in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also seen in myself as a patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could somehow erase our difficult moments, like clicking “undo”. But that arrow only goes in reverse. Facing the reality that this is unattainable and accepting the grief and rage for things not happening how we hoped, rather than a insincere positive spin, can promote a transformation: from denial and depression, to progress and potential. Over time – and, of course, it requires patience – this can be life-changing.

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 letdown and happiness and life force, and all the rest. The alternative to depression is not happiness, but feeling whatever is there, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and release.

I have frequently found myself trapped in this desire to reverse things, but my toddler is assisting me in moving past it. As a recent parent, I was at times burdened by the amazing requirements of my infant. Not only the nursing – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again under 60 minutes after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the changing again before you’ve even finished the swap you were doing. These everyday important activities among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a reassurance and a tremendous privilege. Though they’re also, at moments, relentless and draining. What surprised me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the feelings requirements.

I had thought my most key role as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon came to realise that it was impossible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her appetite could seem unmeetable; my supply could not be produced rapidly, or it flowed excessively. And then we needed to change her – but she hated being changed, and cried as if she were plunging into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed comforted by the cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that nothing we had to offer could help.

I soon realized that my most key responsibility as a mother was first to survive, and then to assist her process the powerful sentiments caused by the impossibility of my shielding her from all unease. As she developed her capacity to consume and process milk, she also had to build an ability to process her feelings and her distress when the supply was insufficient, or when she was suffering, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to develop alongside her (and my) frustration, rage, despair, loathing, discontent, need. My job was not to guarantee smooth experiences, but to support in creating understanding to her feelings journey of things not working out ideally.

This was the difference, for her, between having someone who was attempting to provide her only positive emotions, and instead being supported in building a capacity to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the difference, for me, between aiming to have wonderful about performing flawlessly as a flawless caregiver, and instead building the ability 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 understanding when she had to sob.

Now that we have grown through this together, I feel reduced the urge to click erase and change our narrative into one where all is perfect. I find faith in my sense of a ability growing inside me to recognise that this is impossible, and to understand that, when I’m busy trying to rearrange a trip, what I really need is to weep.