A year in review- kind of
Relationship breakup, moving location, and creating a new care team
*exasperated sigh*
It has been just over a year of living alone. Yesterday I submitted a request to NDIS for a plan reassessment. Today I took my assistance dog to a café. In a few days it is my ex fiancées birthday.
Just one orbit around the sun and yet so much has changed in my life.
Hi, hello, welcome to the tank.
Might I take a moment of your time to complain about gathering paperwork together for a NDIS plan reassessment? There has been no single plan in my 4 years as an NDIS participant where my funding has been able to sufficiently meet my disability needs. While yes, as my ex snidely told me once, “not everyone is privileged like you to get NDIS to pay for therapy”, I am allowed to vent about the amount of hoops needed to jump through to get the right funding. What is with that by the way? And I’m not talking about the general sentiment of recognising privilege, I’m talking about the whataboutism fallacy where someone with lower support needs feels the need to point out to those with higher needs that they should at least be grateful they are getting the bare minimum? Stop doing that
*sigh*
One could argue that if I were plan managed it would be significantly easier to arrange appointments and collect paperwork, but the difference in stress levels is insignificant. I’m thankful that this isn’t my first rodeo, and as a result I’m confident in what paperwork I need to fill out; What gets to me though is the stress of everyone else’s paperwork. For those unaware: NDIS funding allocation rides on how many test results and lengthy pages of evidence your care team can pull out of their asses to satisfy Jill in the office who has zero experience of being disabled apart from that one time she sprained her ankle playing netball back in 85’. Be thankful though that your paperwork didn’t end up on her office neighbour Janet’s desk, because although everything is in line with NDIS guidelines, Janet’s decline rate is slightly higher. In general though, the more thorough the reports, the better. The more thorough the reports however, means more hours spent on writing, and subsequently more money you need to spend.
My problem: I need more capacity building supports. And you’ll never guess the category that supporting evidence reports are claimed through…
Capacity building. It’s capacity building.
And so- after multiple appointments and a few silly acronym assessments with my local occupational therapist, another neuropsychological evaluation for ASD because my previous one a few years ago said ‘yes’ but didn’t give me a level- which NDIS need nowadays (fun fact: I’m a 2. Woo?); Tens of hours and a couple of thousand dollars spent to obtain those reports alongside ones from my psychotherapist, support worker provider, and exercise physiologist; I sent off my 56 page plan reassessment request yesterday.
NDIS states that they may take up to 28 days to action these kinds of requests. Do I have enough funding to have therapy and EP up until that point? We will be cutting it very fine. I’m anxious. This first post in many months is an anxious vent about how much progress I have made in therapy and my worries about my availability to attend being out of my control. Let’s move to something else for a moment. - subject changing often helps me ground. I learned that in therapy… *reeee*
I have an assistance dog. It’s a bit too early to be posting about him. Sometimes things don’t work out in the transition from matching to living with a new sentient being. I will say that I love him dearly and he is a very good boy. He is already making such a positive impact in my life. I intend on writing further about my experience once he is fully settled in and we are both adjusted to our.. working relationship?
Is this my first actual post since moving to Substack? I think it is. Hi to those who initially subscribed to my blogs when I was utilising WordPress. Welcome to the new location. I hope you like. To new readers, how did you even get here? My writing needs work and I’m unapologetically a bit of a mess sometimes. But it’s a free mess, so you’re welcome :).
Teenage-like memey parts of self are around and I’m cringing at my own coping mechanisms. I am glad though that I finally was in mood to make a blog post. I miss this.
Wishing everyone a safe weekend. Keep swimming little axolotls!