Isn't a therapist supposed to LOWER your stress?

At the risk of sounding like such a complainer these days, I have to tell the story of my week.
It really is almost comical if it weren't so sad. Since I really haven't even given this blog address
to more than a few people I actually know, I won't be offending anyone. Well I hope not anyway. Well we lost Sophie and that is the worst part of this past week. It was and is devastating and there's not much more that needs to be said about that. One of my daughter's best friends (and our good friend's daughter) has
been really betraying Olivia lately and out of jealousy and a competitive nature on her part has decided to try to turn a group of girls against our daughter. I felt it was going too far and spoke
to her mother as diplomatically as I possibly could. I thought we could handle this like two adults. Turns out I was the only adult involved. With a smile on and the sweetest of voices,
she did what I guess most people who cannot accept responsibility for something they or their kid did, she did the classic "deny it ever happened" in the form of "my daughter would never do that!" Sidebar here: she has had this problem with her daughter in her school before, and the second most common defense mechanism, pass the blame onto someone else thereby deflecting
attention off her kid. Somehow this is Olivia's fault and maybe she is not as mature as her daughter. I can't even find the strength to type long enough to tell you how backwards she has
that except to say that her daughter is obsessed with public potty talk and a parent at our softball game actually pulled me aside to ask if she had a mental problem or tourrettes. I am torn between ignoring all this or sticking up for my daughter and telling her how disappointed I am that she would go to such lengths as to blame someone else for her kid's behavior. God people are so immature sometimes. It's called REALITY people, it happens whether you can deal with it or not!!! What makes this worse is she sat her kid down and told her this theory not only giving her an excuse for her mean behavior but this kid now has one more thing to whisper to the "brat pack" about Olivia and her MOM told her this so it must be true.
Unbelievable. So I do what I thought about doing a year ago. I make an appt. with a therapist.
Tim is sooooo busy at work that we have to turn cartwheels to make this happen and I had a noon appt today. Tim and I both have miserable colds and woke up so exhausted. I felt guilty that he had to drag himself to the job early so I could make my appt. He is not great with time and often is late. He calls me shortly before the appt. and tells me he might not make it. GREAT.
I get my kid ready and tell him to pick her up in the waiting room of the office I am going to. He
totally rushes and gets home in time and off I go. I am tired, sick, in physical pain from a whole other situation and the counselor totally blows off the first 15 minutes of my appt. by staying longer with her last appt. not even coming out to say she'd be with me shortly. Now this is not like going to the regular doctors' office. You get a time and they are on time. They do not run over with people but today she did on my first visit. I was furious. Then I get into her office and
she is worried about her next appt. which she will be late for. She apologized and realized I was ticked and I thought, "how is talking to this rude woman going to help me?" She realized this
without me saying it and asked if this has negatively affected our session today. YA THINK?!!! I said " ya know, I should have been in therapy a year ago but I have had NO time to worry about me. I finally made this appt. My husband has cancer(she knew this) and he's sick and he just made himself crazy trying to get home in time to watch our kid. I am sick and tired and in pain and you are 15 minutes late!!! Was that a life threatening situation that you just had in here because I am trying to be understanding here?" We spoke for a few minutes and I realized she would spend the last 20 minutes of MY appt. watching the clock as she ticked off her next clent.
I said, "This is a waste of my time and you are rude" and I walked out. This was the cherry on the cake of my week. Ya know things are tough when even your therapist pisses you off!!! Just another day in the life. Time to find a new shrink.