Hi @eth and everyone else here.
Firstly, I’m really grateful to you @eth for sharing your experiences. I’m sorry I haven’t done the same yet, but I’m going to now. I was talking to @CheerBear (over there ➡️) the other day and our discussion along with a comment from the lovely @Queenie reminded me just how helpful it can be to read about the experiences of others. So here I am, getting my brave on.
I had never intended to apply for the NDIS, but was made to feel like it was the only way I’d ever be able to access the support I need (or any support at all). After unsuccessfully reaching out for help in the public mental health system last year, someone suggested I contact Partners in Recovery. I self-referred, had an interview and within a week was accepted into their program (i.e., assessed as having severe and persistent mental illness). With the help of my support facilitator, we started the NDIS process. I requested an Access Request Form (ARF) in July.
I spent 4 months collating evidence to lodge with my ARF, including an extremely comprehensive mental health OT report (22 pages) and an extensive report from my clinical psychologist (6 pages) - both documenting in detail my (quite severe) functional impairment in each of the six domains. I spent months obtaining and reading my hospital and medical records, reading the awful things health ‘professionals’ write and say behind a patient’s back. It was soul destroying and totally brain mashing.
I lodged my ARF with 85 pages of (relevant) evidence in mid-November. And thus began the waiting game. According the NDIS website: “Upon receiving a valid access request, the NDIA must respond within 21 days.” It took 3 months (64 business days) for me to receive a response. I wasn’t expecting a positive outcome—I’m a realist. But it didn’t make it hurt any less or cause any less damage. My application was unsuccessful because they don’t believe I have a ‘substantially reduced functional capacity’ in even one of the six domains. And despite requesting on my ARF that contact be made in writing, and providing extensive evidence to show that I really struggle with verbal communication, the NDIA decided it was appropriate to deliver their decision via a phone call (a phone call that, funnily enough, I didn’t answer and so the decision was delivered via voicemail). They then sent not one, but two letters, as though I wasn’t smart enough to get it the first time they told me.
I’m leaving the next step up to my support facilitator and the PIR team. At this stage I think the plan is to wait awhile and then resubmit with the same info. Apparently it depends who reads your application, and many applications that are rejected the first time are approved when resubmitted and assessed by someone else. My support facilitator has another client who submitted an incomplete application with almost no supporting evidence. She called the NDIA three days later to see what documents her client needed to submit and was told it was fine, it had already been approved. Unfortunately, it really does depend who reads your application. The system is so very broken and so very wrong.
This experience has really done a number on me (as I knew it would). Trying to prove I am sufficiently broken, has broken me even more. I wasn't well before I started, and I am certainly not well enough now to fight this. The letter from the NDIS (well, both of them) states: “While you are not able to access support through the NDIS, this decision in no way affects any existing supports you receive.” If only I had existing supports. It’s so hard to not take a ‘you do not matter’ message from all of this. It shouldn’t be this hard to access help. 
