Just want to say upfront I apologize if this is the wrong group for this type of content!

About a year ago I moved back to Pennsylvania from Florida where I lived a decade. When in Florida I started seeing a Psychiatrist for my depression and anxiety. I had tried to see doctors for it up in Pennsylvania but they always would prescribe a SSRI or SNRI and tell me good luck. Well finally in Florida I met a doctor who after trying me on Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro thought that Klonopin could potentially be very beneficial. Well it was and is. For the last ten years my depression has been basically gone thanks to a low dose of Clonazepam every day. I admittedly think Clonazepam kind of saved me from myself in so many ways as I was so impulsive as a teenager and in my early 20s.

Last month I went in to see my DNP (who specializes in Psych) and she keeps dropping my dose of Clonazepam and insisting that I'd be better off with Remeron and Effexor. Neither of which have done anything but cause immense side effects and distress and may be the reason my original Psychiatrist in Florida thought I was allergic to them. She won't give me a real GOOD reason as to why I should not be on any Clonazepam which is her goal with me. She has me down to 1mg a day now and while I am glad I've been able to drop my dose I just don't agree with her assessment that benzodiazepines are just fundamentally bad medicine. I think frankly just about all psychiatric drugs are pretty bad for us. And at least with benzos it's not a bunch of trial and error with drugs that don't work for 4 to 6 weeks anyway. That's such a broken model of mental health treatment in my mind. 

I have suggested to her that maybe I could just stay on a low dose of Clonazepam since it works and I don't abuse them. She doesn't want to hear that at all. The way I see it is in this instance she's basically trying to invent a new solution to my depression although I already found one. A much more effective one.

As I come off the Clonazepam my anxiety is now getting unbearable. I'm on the toilet constantly due to gastric distress caused by my anxiety, I cannot watch TV because I'm lost in my mind with anxiety, I can't sleep at all and now I've lost my appetite entirely. I'm the opposite of a stress eater. I cannot eat if I'm even mildly stressed. 

I say all that to essentially ask advice as to what you would do? I want to know if you would go see another doctor, continue on with tapering off of the benzodiazepine, keep trying different SSRIs and other non controlled drugs even though they seem like they never help? I do understand how potentially I look and seem addicted to Clonazepam but I'd say that's more of a chemical dependency. My reasoning there is that if I were actually addicted to the medicine I would have needed to go to rehab to taper. I wouldn't be able to stop myself from taking my whole prescription in 3 days and stuff like that. I don't do any of that stuff and have complied and already come off most of it so I have to insist that I have a chemical dependency which would be the result of any drug that effectively treats my depression.

tldr- my doctor insists on taking me off Klonopin but I'd like to remain on a low dose. Should I see another doctor or just suck it up? How does one even go about finding a doctor who cares without spending tons of money? Also, are benzos actually worse for you than taking SSRIs or is that really just a political thing? TIA