Does living with disability impact your day-to-day life in challenging ways? It often comes as a shock to find that our body, brain or sense of self changes, whether abruptly or subtly over time.

Disability is part of being human. Almost every person will experience a disability, either temporarily or permanently, at some time in their life. Impairment may be intellectual, cognitive, neurological, sensory, physical or psychosocial.

If you are living with disability, we can make a profound difference in your life. As a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) provider, Quest for Life offers a range of residential programs, online courses and resources that can provide meaningful opportunities to live with independence, choice and improved quality of life – to help you live your best life!

At Quest for Life, we welcome people of all abilities.

What is Disability?

• Disability is any condition of the body or mind that makes it more difficult for us to do certain activities and interact with the world around us.
• Disability can be:
  – a condition that is present when we are born,
  – associated with developmental conditions that become apparent during childhood,
  – related to an injury to our body or mind, or
  – associated with a long-term condition whose symptoms can cause disability (for example, vision impairment as a result of diabetes).

Visible and Non-Visible Disability

Many disabilities do not present themselves in a physical form and may not present themselves visibly when people meet face-to-face. Often people can be more accepting of individuals who have visible disabilities, whereas people living with non-visible disabilities can experience bullying, discrimination and feeling misunderstood.

It is for this reason that at Quest, we prefer to ask people whether they feel as good as they look, rather than making an assumption that because a person looks well, it reflects how they feel.

Non-visible disabilities can include intellectual impairment; difficulty learning or understanding things; psychosocial, nervous or emotional conditions; and mental illness that restricts everyday activities.

Examples of non-visible disabilities include:

• ADD
• ADHD
• Anxiety
• Bipolar
• PTSD/CPTSD
• Depression
• OCD
• Asperger’s

What issues might you experience if you have a Disability?

People living with disability face numerous barriers that may negatively impact their quality of life.

We could all do better in understanding what barriers exist and try to eliminate them where possible as well as encourage others to remove any barriers that we can’t remove on our own.

Barriers include:

• Attitudinal Barriers
• Mobility Barriers
• Technological Barriers
• Institutional Barriers

Immediate help

• Call 000 if your life is in danger.
• For crisis support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
• Beyondblue website contains many useful forums and resources

Treatment

Speak with your GP or other trusted health professional and consider attending a Quest for Life residential program. 

How Quest for Life’s programs help people with disabilities

Quest for Life is a registered NDIS Provider and our capacity-building programs can be funded through NDIS plans for NDIS participants. If you’re not an NDIS participant, subsidies may be available. Please contact our Programs Team.

Our 5-day residential programs help participants:

• pursue their goals, objectives, and aspirations;
• increase their independence;
• increase community and workplace participation,
• manage difficult emotions more effectively;
• learn conflict resolution skills;
• understand the importance of sleep, nutrition and exercise; and
• develop their capacity to actively take part in the community.

Recommended programs:

• Healing Your Life – for people with anxiety, depression, grief or burnout
• Moving Beyond Trauma – for people with PTSD and CPTSD
• Quest for Life – for people with serious or chronic illness
• Maintaining Your Memory – for people with cognitive impairment
• ReQuest – for past participants of a Quest 5-day program

Connect with Quest

If you’re on Facebook, you can connect with Quest from the comfort of your own home in a variety of ways including through online group participation or by watching our weekly wellbeing livestreams.

Join the Petrea King Meditation Group to join and hear from Quest Founder and CEO Petrea King most Monday nights from 7.30pm-8pm.

@Home with Quest is our free wellbeing livestream each Wednesday at 11am on Facebook LIVE. Join the stream to hear from an experienced Quest facilitator who will explore techniques to manage anxiety and fear, strategies for self-care, deep relaxation, and the things we can all do to help ourselves and others.

Quest Connect is our monthly wellness livestream hosted on the first Sunday of each month on Facebook LIVE from 2-3pm. Join the stream to take a deep dive with a Quest facilitator into a topic around easing anxiety and restoring resilience.

Toolkit

Some of these practices can help you to calm your mind and improve your wellbeing and can be found on our toolkit page:

• Keys to help you sleep better
• Meditation practices
• The Four Cs to resilience and peace

You may also find some of Petrea King’s Podcasts useful to listen to.

Resources

• Wellbeing books Including Your Life Matters by Petrea King – a guidebook for life
• Meditation CDs including Be Calm, Healing Journey, Releasing Pain, Golden Light
• Disability Language Guide – useful when talking about people with disability

Related Articles

• NDIS Case Study – David’s Story: Supporting Men’s Mental Health
• NDIS Services at Quest
• The 4 Group Guidelines at Quest
• Healing PTSD: Former paramedic Chris Henning’s story

Quest for Life knows how to help. Our internal research results show that participants feel better after attending our programs and that this improvement increases over time. On our programs, you’ll be nourished, educated and supported to create an environment for profound healing.

“Meditation and mindfulness have helped me greatly. I tell people now that meditation is my medication. Without Quest, without my psychologist, and without my GP – I’d be dead. I totally turned my life around.”-

– David

If you are living with disability, please reach out to us via the Contact Form below to start a conversation with one of our Program Advisors, who can answer your questions or find the most appropriate program for your needs.