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I trust your a pleasant summer: I did not. That day we were planning to go on holiday, I was sitting in A&E with my husband, waiting for him to have prompt but common surgery, which meant our getaway ideas needed to be cancelled.

From this episode I learned something important, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to feel bad when things go wrong. I’m not talking about life-altering traumas, but the more routine, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – unless we can actually experience them – will really weigh us down.

When we were supposed to be on holiday but could not be, I kept experiencing a pull 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 had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery required frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a limited time window for an enjoyable break on the Belgian coast. So, no getaway. Just disappointment and frustration, suffering and attention.

I know worse things can happen, it's merely a vacation, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I required was to be sincere with my feelings. In those moments when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to smile, I’ve granted myself all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to bitterness and resentment and loathing and fury, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even became possible 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 patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could in some way undo our negative events, like hitting a reverse switch. But that button only points backwards. Facing the reality that this is unattainable and embracing the pain and fury for things not happening how we hoped, rather than a dishonest kind of “reframing”, can enable a shift: from denial and depression, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be life-changing.

We consider depression as experiencing negativity – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a suppressing of frustration and sorrow and frustration and delight and vitality, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but experiencing all emotions, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and freedom.

I have repeatedly found myself trapped in this wish to reverse things, but my little one is helping me to grow out of it. As a first-time mom, I was at times swamped by the amazing requirements of my baby. Not only the nourishing – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the changing again before you’ve even ended the task you were changing. These everyday important activities among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a comfort and a great honor. Though they’re also, at moments, relentless and draining. What astounded me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the feelings requirements.

I had assumed my most key role as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon understood that it was not possible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she required it. Her hunger could seem endless; my nourishment could not come fast enough, or it flowed excessively. And then we needed to change her – but she disliked being changed, and sobbed as if she were descending into a gloomy abyss of despair. And while sometimes she seemed comforted by the embraces we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were separated from us, that no comfort we gave 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 powerful sentiments caused by the infeasibility of my protecting her from all distress. As she grew her ability to ingest and absorb milk, she also had to develop a capacity to digest her emotions and her distress when the supply was insufficient, or when she was suffering, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to grow through her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, hatred, disappointment, hunger. My job was not to guarantee smooth experiences, but to help bring meaning to her emotional experience of things being less than perfect.

This was the distinction, for her, between being with someone who was seeking to offer her only positive emotions, and instead being helped to grow a capacity to feel every emotion. It was the contrast, for me, between desiring to experience excellent about performing flawlessly as a ideal parent, and instead building the ability to tolerate my own imperfections in order to do a adequately performed – and grasp my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The difference between my seeking to prevent her crying, and understanding when she needed to cry.

Now that we have grown through this together, I feel reduced the wish to press reverse and alter our history into one where all is perfect. I find faith in my feeling of a ability evolving internally to recognise that this is impossible, and to realize that, when I’m occupied with attempting to rearrange a trip, what I really need is to cry.