For those of you who have successfully made it through graduate school, I am hoping you can provide me with some much needed advice from your own experiences.
I am in the first semester of a RN/MSN program. My advisor is also the department head and I believe she may have narcissistic personality disorder. I have become a target of her abuse, and I fear potentially a smear campaign behind my back. She has made several mistakes thus far, in regard to my transcripts and various other responsibilities that fall under her jurisdiction. In order to move forward, I had to address these. For example, I had no choice but to have several classes transferred in that she had 'missed' or I would have needed to attend an extra semester. I will not go into all the details because they are not important. Basically, as a narcissist, she has taken my reasonable actions, such as contacting the office of transfer credits, in a professional and non-accusatory way, as a 'slight' to herself. I could provide many examples but you get the picture, it is not an isolated event.
Long story short, she hates me and very much wants to get me alone, I suspect so that she can maintain control and/or perhaps verbally abuse me with no witnesses. She has already used this tactic to 'gaslight' me. Saying that she never told me important information that she did, or saying that I did not tell her things that I did, such as having taken certain classes. She now refuses to advise me in a way that would allow me a record of what happened. No recorders, no email, etc. She has also refused to reassign me to another advisor, despite my have numerous valid reason's for such a request.
Since I am in the first semester, I am trying to decide if I should withdraw from the program and go elsewhere. This will, of course, add time onto my education. I also have no guarantee that I will be accepted into a masters program elsewhere. If I do stay, it will mean at this point having to meet with the dean. Which I fear will lead me to be labeled and that I will be in emotional distress the entire program, fearing that I will be treated harshly in the future. As if at any point, the rug could be pulled out from under me.
I am an emotional wreck right now. I know how nursing school is, but this woman is a bully, not just strict. And, she is the department head. I hope that those of you who have passed before me can offer some insight into what the best decision would be. Has anyone else faced issue such as this? If so, were you able to resolve them in a positive manner? And how? If you were not able to resolve them in a positive manner, what did you do in the end?
