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I hope you had a pleasant summer: I did not. That day we were planning to go on holiday, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have prompt but common surgery, which caused our getaway ideas had to be cancelled.

From this episode I learned something significant, all over again, about how challenging it is for me to experience sadness when things go wrong. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more everyday, quietly devastating disappointments that – if we don't actually experience them – will truly burden us.

When we were expected to be on holiday but could not be, 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 never felt better, just a bit depressed. 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 enjoyable break on the shores of Belgium. So, no getaway. Just letdown and irritation, hurt and nurturing.

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 truthful to myself. In those times when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we addressed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of experiencing sadness and trying to smile, I’ve given myself permission all sorts of unwanted feelings, including but not limited to hostility and displeasure and loathing and fury, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even was feasible to value our days at home together.

This reminded me of a wish I sometimes observe in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also witnessed in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could somehow erase our difficult moments, like hitting a reverse switch. But that button only looks to the past. Acknowledging the reality that this is impossible and allowing the grief and rage for things not working out how we hoped, rather than a false optimism, 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 transformative.

We consider depression as experiencing negativity – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a suppressing of rage and grief 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 liberty.

I have often found myself caught in this wish to reverse things, but my toddler is assisting me in moving past it. As a first-time mom, I was at times swamped by the astonishing demands of my baby. Not only the nursing – sometimes for a lengthy period at a time, and then again less than an hour after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the doing it once more before you’ve even completed the change you were handling. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a comfort and a significant blessing. Though they’re also, at moments, unceasing and exhausting. What shocked me the most – aside from the lack of rest – were the feelings requirements.

I had assumed my most primary duty as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon came to realise that it was unfeasible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her hunger could seem insatiable; my milk could not arrive quickly, or it flowed excessively. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she despised being changed, and sobbed as if she were descending into a shadowy pit of misery. And while sometimes she seemed soothed by the embraces 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 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 impossibility of my guarding her from all distress. As she developed her capacity to take in and digest milk, she also had to build an ability to process her feelings and her distress when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was hurting, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, 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 being with someone who was attempting to provide her only good feelings, and instead being helped to grow a ability to experience all feelings. It was the difference, for me, between desiring to experience excellent about performing flawlessly as a perfect mother, and instead building the ability to accept my own shortcomings in order to do a adequately performed – and understand my daughter’s disappointment and anger with me. The contrast between my attempting to halt her crying, and comprehending when she required to weep.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel reduced the wish to hit “undo” and alter our history into one where everything goes well. I find hope in my sense of a capacity developing within to recognise that this is unattainable, and to realize that, when I’m busy trying to rearrange a trip, what I really need is to sob.