Kayla - VIC
I have 3 children - 9, 8 and 4. My middle child was diagnosed with ASD at 4, along with intellectual disability, sensory processing disorder, selective mutism, high anxiety, and ADHD. My youngest was born with a congenital heart defect which required heart surgery at just 12 weeks old. We got her through a month long stay at RCH. We came home to a nearly immediate marriage breakdown trauma which led me to essentially being a single mum of 3 kids. I have remarried, thankfully to a very supportive partner but in 4 years' time I've had all 3 of my kids diagnosed ASD, 2 with ADHD, 2 with intellectual disability, sensory processing disorder across the board amongst other things. We have no informal supports from any family and NDIA hangs their hat on parental responsibility, limiting support hours. I'm very thankful for the help we do receive, but we are carers 24/7. Our kids are at 3 different schools with 30+ allied health appointments a month. We are on low-income carer pensioners and can't afford respite for ourselves while having our children cared for with such high needs. (Submitted in October 2022)
Share your own story
If you’re a carer, we want to hear your caring story: the more we share, the louder our voice will be! If you’re not a carer, we still want to hear why you think carers are so important to our communities.
We will not publish any stories with offensive language or disrespectful content, and ask that all submissions be respectful. We recommend a maximum of 200 words per entry.
By sharing your story with Carers Australia, you are consenting to the use of your story as part of our advocacy work to achieve better outcomes for unpaid carers. Any stories used for advocacy purposes will not include names or identifying information in order to maintain privacy. Feel free to read the Carers Australia Privacy Policy.
If you choose to include a photo in your submission, you give Carers Australia permission to use that photo in our advocacy work. If you do not want your photo used publicly, please do not upload one.
If you decide after submission you no longer want your carer story or image to be used in our advocacy work, please contact us via [email protected] and we will remove the relevant material within two business days.