I feel really stupid posting something so personal on here but am at the point where I am actually desperate for help and this is so hard to talk to anyone in rl about.
Have posted before about having anxiety and not being able to cope mentally with one decision in particular that I made about a year ago and how this has affected my life but was too embarassed to admit what the actual decision was. It sounds too trivial for mental health, however when I tried posting it in another part of mn I realised its really hard to explain without the context of how this whole thing is affecting my mental health, as without this the situation seems quite straight forward. I also worry about making this "public" but I really really need to discuss this outside of my relationship and the very few ppl I have confided in in rl are either lost as to what to say or one friend was really judgemental and its put me off telling anyone else.
So here goes.
I have been really, really upset for the last ten months or so that I made the wrong decision with my son's name. I started having doubts about it when he was only a few weeks old but pretended it wasn't happening and then when I admitted I felt I had made a huge mistake my dp and the psychologist I was seeing at the time (I suffered from very bad anxiety when I was pregnant it was absolutely awful) both told me that this was just another symptom of my illness and the baby's name wasn't the real problem at all. Plus my dp point blank refused to change it.
Fast forward 10 months or so, and I tried all this time to believe it was just anxiety giving me what became really quite obsessive thoughts ("I have really messed up with his name. I am, starting to hate his name. I can't believe I ever agreed to it. I can't live with this but no one will take me seriously or let me put it right" etc etc all the bloody time. Attempting to deal with the anxiety which seemed to be fuelling this has involved me taking god knows how many different types of medication and a 2 month stay in a mother and baby unit (during which I begged dp every day to let me change the name but he just kept saying no this is just anxiety etc etc). I am ashamed of all this and very few people in rl actually know about me being in hospital or anything. Dp and I have nearly split up over it. Every time someone asks my sons name it starts in my head and I cant describe how angry I am with myself for agreeeing to call him it (I should not have compromised so much with dp over it which sounds very selfish but belive me, he would not be feeling ill about it a year later had we called him what I want to change it to initially).
I have since found out that plently of (ordinary)ppl change their minds about their children's names and go on to change them even up to 2 years old and older. Things have now reached a point where my dp finally said to me the other day "right I can't take any more of this, just change his name. Its far more important to you than it ever will be to me" Now, if this had happened 6 months ago then I would have immediately gone and done so. But here's the bloody wierd thing. Now he has finally given in I am scared to go ahead and actually do it. Why? I am scared of people's reactions now that my son is over a year old and although I am sure it will have no effect on him (he is a happy secure child who I don't think is massively aware of his name yet), I am just not strong enough for people thinking I am wierd, thinking its a shame for dp or ds, or basically any criticism of my decision. I cant face telling the staff in his nursery, dp's family, having to deal with their disapproval and having to keep reminding people to use the new name.
Basically this fear is also because I have, over the last year and a half of pretty poor mental health, lost all my self confidence. I have also been through a bereavement during this time as well, put on at least 2 stone and been a psychiatric patient so I no longer really recognise myself as the fairly confident sensible person I used to be. I was stupid enough to call him the wrong name in the first place so what if changing it makes me feel even more stupid (you may not think it but its quite humiliating at this stage when my son has just had his first birthday, etc), but at the same time I don't know if I can live with my son being called the name he is as it upsets me too much.
I feel basically like I am f*ed either way now and both me and my partner REALLY REALLY need to resolve this so we can try and move on from it as it been a pretty devastating time.
Any non judgemenatal thoughts on this? Or does anyone relate to it in any small way? I am totally isolated by this and completely at the end of my tether.
Sorry this is so long I think I just finally needed it off my chest in some way or another.