I'm 52 and agree with the above opinions, that the public health care system treats older people with mental health issues at low priority. I can see why: treatment may enable young people to live a happy and successful life, whereas at 50 the damage is pretty much done. Also, people in their 50s may be deemed to be able to cope on their own, as otherwise they wouldn't have made it this far. I'm with dancinglady: I'll probably stay alone for the rest of my life for what it's worth, so why not just live the day and see what happens.

The future will tell if privately paid therapy did me any good. On one hand I feel I'm gaining a lot of valuable insight, on the other therapy sessions are difficult to integrate into my work life and it looks like they just contributed to a significant and very demotivating setback.