PWDA members and community share their stories about Reasonable. Necessary and Ordinary ways they use their NDIS supports
Tuesday 12 May
As part of our Reasonable. Necessary. Ordinary campaign we asked for your real life stories about "What does the NDIS make possible in your everyday life?"
These are the real life stories about what the NDIS funds. How it supports people with disability to do ordinary things - like getting out of bed, going to work, eating, breathing and being part of our communities.
Work and Family
I live with younger onset dementia. NDIS supports have kept me safe while my family go to work, partner with 2 jobs to pick up the income I've lost. NDIS supporting me, means that I can still support my adult autistic child. I've had amazing support workers escort me around Australia in my advocacy activities, and I even was able to get a proper part-time job….Denying a wheelchair whilst simultaneously slashing my social and community budget so I can't leave home, is deeply depressing. It's also counterproductive, as I was going to get close to being financially self-sufficient by working.
Anonymous
I am a full time career for my husband. He is a quadriplegic and has been in a wheelchair for 43 years. The NDIS has greatly improved his quality of life. Having choice and control over his funding is a huge benefit. He gets to choose his carers and works closely with them.
Anonymous
We were lucky enough to access the NDIS from when our child turned 9. We had already been through the mill at that stage, and were desperate to find help.
The NDIS helped us to provide access to therapeutic support, and also to provide support for our child to access the world with the close support that they needed.
Anonymous
Because of the NDIS I can be the mom my kids deserve. As a late diagnosed autistic woman it's been a process admitting I need help, accepting supports and figuring out what support is most helpful. NDIS supports have been life changing in ways I could not have imagined… Slowly I have begun to recover. I now realize how much support I have always needed, but have lived without. In the past it was hard enough managing day to day living. Anything beyond that, like Christmas, felt insurmountable. This year Christmas felt like Christmas. That's the gift NDIS has given me and my kids.
Anonymous
Because of the NDIS I can work, live at home with my children and contribute to society. My community access hours are spent taking my kids to school, watching my kids play sports and going to work. My self care hours are spent having showers, going to the toilet, making food, doing shopping/cooking, taking medication, administering food (tube feeding), repositioning, hoist transfers, getting on and off the couch for cuddles with my kids and staying alive (preventing medical falls/asphyxiation).
Every single dollar in my plan is spent on essentials, doing things we as a society don't often think take effort. My children are parented by me, they are my whole world and I theirs, NDIS gives me the physical ability to continue to be their entire world and me theirs.
Anonymous
Socialisation
I am a 52 year woman with chronic borderline personality disorder and major depression. NDIS has changed my life. I went from a psychiatric hospital admission every 3 months to years and counting. I get psychology which I wouldn't be able to afford without NDIS assistance. It has stabilised me. I don't drive due to severe dissociative symptoms, so my community access support gets me out of the house and engaging in mentally healthy activities such as bush walks. I am scared that if I lose all of this I will go back into a public mental health system that hates borderlines. They won't deal with us until we try to commit suicide. NDIS prevents me from getting to that point.
Anonymous
As a NDIS participant I would probably inject over $100 to $150 a week of my own money into the Australian economy. Prior to the NDIS that money sat idle in my bank account as I could not spend time in the community to spend any money. I am one participant imagine the daily amount of their own money spent by participants on food, drinks, social activities such as concerts and shows and the list goes on. There appears to be a common belief in the community that the NDIS funds every social activity a participant attends and every holiday a participant goes on.
Anonymous
Without the NDIS, I wouldn't be able to seek the psychological support needed for my ASD and ADHD along with many other difficulties, which I wouldn't be able to access due to my financial situation. It allows for me to be well enough to be employed and keep social connections with others, which before I struggled with because of my complex challenges and needs.
Anonymous
Without my NDIS funds, I will not be able to access physical and mental health appointments that will allow me to live with dignity. I am living paycheck to paycheck and cannot even afford the diagnoses for all of my different disabilities. I finally got into a place mentally where I am no longer Suicidal and am over a year clean from self harm, but without my psychology appointments I could be at risk of my mental health rapidly declining. It is hard enough to access anything from the NDIS, and with the new cuts I'm scared I'll get cut off completely. This new NDIS fund reduction WILL cost disabled lives.
Anonymous
Without the NDIS I would not be able to work, participate in my community and eat healthy meals
Anonymous
