Therapy, yet again

Last week I was having coffee with a friend when the cell rang and it was the new therapist recommended by my doctor. I'm not comfortable speaking on such  matters in public and asked him if I might call him back, and did so when I got home. This took place right before my session with current therapist.

I've not listed the various labels my current therapist has slapped on me, simply out of shame. My point here is that our working relationship took a nose dive since she returned from sick leave of 3 weeks when she complained I was the only "highly stressed" patient she has, everyone else just waited for her to return to see patients. Well la di da. All I did was leave  voice mail asking when she planned to return after almost no communication from her--she doesn't have a secretary or staff to communicate with patients and wasn't keeping in touch herself except once to call with a scratchy voice saying she wasn't yet ready to see patients in her 2nd week of being out. Everyone gets sick....I think the imbalance for me is she is the medical figure, I am patient and 3 weeks of no therapy was a bit long for me, especially when I just started on antipsychotic medication....there, now you know, its that bad, I was hallucinating and not smoking absinthe.

So since then she's been picking me apart very coldly with these labels explaining how I have expectations of people, dismiss people, self centric, basically I do things in survival mode (my term) all the time although she doesn't see it as survival mode anymore, it ws okay for a child or a young mother, at my age it's not allowed anymore. I do mean at times she grins at me almost sadistically to see whether she gets a rise out of me, any supportive or nurturing on her part has dissolved into a brick wall of anecdotes about her other patients to give me examples of how and why certain behaviors are or are not acceptable.

Okay, example--she mentioned one very educated man who would adamantly refuse to listen to any music other than classical. She once played something for him and he asked her to please stop the music it was almost painful for him to listen, it wasn't classical music. She explained that for this man, in order for him to feel superior he denigrated anything he didn't consider highbrow or intellectually above most people's taste. I don't do anything like that, give me Jimi Hendrix anytime as well as Medieval music although I'm not crazy about Mozart, I could listen to Chopin 24/7 but limit myself because his affect on me emotionally is too strong.

She hasn't explained where personal taste begins and bad behavior begins....I'm just exhibiting bad behavior since I didn't like the book she recommended and disagreed with her about who to vote for, for President last year. I don't want to bore you with further petty details but it feels like my disagreeing with her selections is a slap in her face, in fact she outright stated 2x that my comments insulted her by disrespecting her choices, so because of that she has withdrawn her more personal support and is being more formal in her approach.

My only concern about switching is whether the new therapist will be around for more than one year, he is being supervised by my doctor as a last year intern...maybe I'm being too cautious, but I do think the energy I'm wasting on trying to feel sane while dealing with this woman could be better utilized with someone supportive even short term.