Accepting Life's Unplanned Setbacks: Why You Can't Simply Press 'Undo'

I wish you enjoyed a enjoyable summer: mine was not. On the day we were scheduled to take a vacation, I was stationed 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 situation I gained insight valuable, all over again, about how challenging it is for me to acknowledge pain when things take a turn. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more everyday, subtly crushing disappointments that – without the ability to actually experience them – will really weigh us down.

When we were supposed to be on holiday but could not be, I kept sensing an urge 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 remained low, just a bit down. And then I would bump up against the reality that this holiday really was gone: my husband’s surgery required frequent painful bandage replacements, and there is a finite opportunity for an relaxing trip on the Belgium's beaches. So, no vacation. Just disappointment and frustration, pain and care.

I know worse things can happen, it’s only a holiday, an enviable dilemma to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I needed was to be truthful to myself. In those moments when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we talked about it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve granted myself all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to anger and frustration and hatred and rage, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even became possible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This reminded me of a wish I sometimes notice in my therapy clients, and that I have also witnessed in myself as a patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could in some way undo our negative events, like clicking “undo”. But that option only goes in reverse. Acknowledging the reality that this is impossible and allowing the grief and rage for things not working out how we hoped, rather than a insincere positive spin, can enable a shift: from rejection and low mood, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be profoundly impactful.

We consider depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a repressing of anger and sadness and disappointment and joy and life force, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but feeling whatever is there, a kind of honest emotional expression and liberty.

I have often found myself stuck in this urge to reverse things, but my little one is supporting my evolution. As a recent parent, I was at times burdened by the amazing requirements of my baby. Not only the feeding – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again under 60 minutes after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the doing it once more before you’ve even completed the change you were changing. These everyday important activities among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a solace and a tremendous privilege. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What surprised me the most – aside from the lack of rest – were the psychological needs.

I had believed my most primary duty as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon realized that it was unfeasible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her craving could seem endless; my nourishment could not be produced rapidly, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she disliked being changed, and cried 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 distant from us, that nothing we had to offer could assist.

I soon learned that my most key responsibility as a mother was first to survive, and then to assist her process the powerful sentiments provoked by the infeasibility of my shielding her from all unease. As she developed her capacity to consume and process milk, she also had to cultivate a skill to manage her sentiments and her suffering when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was in pain, or any other hard and bewildering experience – and I had to grow through her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to assist in finding significance to her emotional experience of things not working out ideally.

This was the contrast, for her, between having someone who was seeking to offer her only positive emotions, and instead being supported in building a ability to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the contrast, for me, between desiring to experience great about performing flawlessly as a flawless caregiver, and instead building the ability to endure my own shortcomings in order to do a adequately performed – and understand my daughter’s disappointment and anger with me. The distinction between my seeking to prevent her crying, and understanding when she needed to cry.

Now that we have evolved past this together, I feel reduced the desire to hit “undo” and rewrite our story into one where all is perfect. I find optimism in my sense of a ability evolving internally to acknowledge that this is not possible, and to understand that, when I’m busy trying to rearrange a trip, what I actually want is to weep.