🔗 Share this article

I hope you had a good summer: mine was not. That day we were scheduled to take a vacation, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have prompt but common surgery, which meant our vacation arrangements needed to be cancelled.

From this experience I gained insight significant, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to experience sadness when things take a turn. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more common, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – if we don't actually feel them – will significantly depress us.

When we were expected to be on holiday but were not, I kept feeling a tug 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 bump up against the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery required frequent painful bandage replacements, and there is a short period for an pleasant vacation on the shores of Belgium. So, no getaway. 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 sincere with my feelings. In those moments when I was able to cease resisting the disappointment and we talked about it instead, it felt like we were sharing an experience. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to smile, I’ve allowed myself all sorts of unwanted feelings, including but not limited to hostility and displeasure and aversion and wrath, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even was feasible to enjoy our time at home together.

This recalled of a hope I sometimes see in my counseling individuals, and that I have also seen in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could perhaps erase our difficult moments, like clicking “undo”. But that option only points backwards. Acknowledging the reality that this is not possible and allowing the grief and rage for things not working out how we hoped, rather than a dishonest kind of “reframing”, can promote a transformation: from rejection and low mood, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be transformative.

We consider depression as being sad – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a pressing down of frustration and sorrow and letdown and happiness and life force, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but experiencing all emotions, a kind of honest emotional expression and release.

I have repeatedly found myself stuck in this urge to click “undo”, but my toddler is supporting my evolution. As a recent parent, I was at times burdened by the incredible needs of my infant. Not only the nursing – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again less than an hour after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the changing again before you’ve even ended the task you were changing. 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, persistent and tiring. What astounded me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the psychological needs.

I had assumed my most important job as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon came to realise that it was impossible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her craving could seem unmeetable; my nourishment could not arrive quickly, or it came too fast. And then we needed to swap her diaper – but she disliked being changed, and wept as if she were falling into a shadowy pit of misery. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the embraces we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that no solution we provided could aid.

I soon realized that my most crucial role as a mother was first to persevere, and then to assist her process the intense emotions caused by the unattainability of my guarding her from all unease. As she enhanced her skill to take in and digest milk, she also had to develop a capacity to manage her sentiments and her suffering 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) frustration, rage, despair, hatred, disappointment, hunger. My job was not to make things go well, but to assist in finding significance to her feelings journey of things not working out ideally.

This was the difference, for her, between experiencing someone who was seeking to offer her only good feelings, and instead being helped to grow a skill to experience all feelings. It was the contrast, for me, between desiring to experience great about executing ideally as a ideal parent, and instead developing the capacity to endure my own shortcomings in order to do a adequately performed – 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 less keenly the wish to press reverse and rewrite our story into one where things are ideal. I find optimism in my awareness of a ability evolving internally to understand that this is unattainable, and to comprehend that, when I’m occupied with attempting to rebook a holiday, what I actually want is to cry.