Facing Our Unexpected Setbacks: The Reason You Can't Simply Press 'Undo'

I wish you enjoyed a pleasant summer: mine was not. That day we were supposed to be go on holiday, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, expecting him to have urgent but routine surgery, which meant our travel plans had to be cancelled.

From this episode I realized a truth important, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to acknowledge pain when things go wrong. I’m not talking about life-altering traumas, but the more common, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – without the ability to actually acknowledge them – will significantly depress us.

When we were supposed 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 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 limited time window for an enjoyable break on the Belgian coast. So, no getaway. Just discontent and annoyance, pain and care.

I know graver situations can happen, it’s only a holiday, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I needed was to be truthful to myself. In those instances when I was able to cease resisting the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were facing it as a team. Instead of experiencing sadness and trying to appear happy, I’ve granted myself all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to hostility and displeasure and hatred and rage, which at least felt real. At times, it even turned out to value our days at home together.

This reminded me of a desire I sometimes observe in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also experienced in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could in some way erase our difficult moments, like hitting a reverse switch. But that option only points backwards. Facing the reality that this is not possible and accepting the pain and fury for things not working out how we expected, rather than a false optimism, can enable a shift: from rejection and low mood, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it requires patience – this can be profoundly impactful.

We consider depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a suppressing of frustration and sorrow and disappointment and joy and vitality, and all the rest. The substitute for depression is not happiness, but feeling whatever is there, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and liberty.

I have repeatedly found myself caught in this wish to erase events, but my young child is supporting my evolution. As a new mother, I was at times burdened by the astonishing demands of my newborn. Not only the feeding – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again less than an hour after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the changing again before you’ve even completed the task you were handling. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – functionality combined with nurturing – are a solace and a significant blessing. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What surprised me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the feelings requirements.

I had assumed my most primary duty as a mother was to fulfill my infant's requirements. But I soon realized that it was impossible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her appetite could seem insatiable; my supply could not be produced rapidly, or it came too fast. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she hated being changed, and cried as if she were falling 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 no solution we provided could aid.

I soon realized that my most important job as a mother was first to persevere, and then to support her in managing the intense emotions provoked by the unattainability of my protecting her from all distress. As she enhanced her skill to consume and process milk, she also had to develop a capacity to digest her emotions and her suffering when the milk didn’t come, or when she was in pain, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to grow through her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to assist in finding significance to her feelings journey of things not working out ideally.

This was the distinction, for her, between being with someone who was attempting to provide her only pleasant sentiments, and instead being helped to grow a capacity to experience all feelings. It was the contrast, for me, between desiring to experience wonderful about executing ideally as a flawless caregiver, and instead cultivating the skill to tolerate my own shortcomings in order to do a sufficiently well – and grasp my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The difference between my attempting to halt her crying, and recognizing when she had to sob.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel reduced the wish to click erase and alter our history into one where all is perfect. I find hope in my sense of a ability growing inside me to recognise that this is impossible, and to realize that, when I’m focused on striving to rebook a holiday, what I truly require is to sob.