All of these things are obtainable through volunteer employment, without some of the stresses and rigidity that go with having a paying job. Volunteers can set their own schedules. While they should be accountable for the hours they commit to, psychologically it is less stressful to be committed out of your own freedom than out of a contractual agreement based on a paycheck. Volunteers are never taken for granted, but always appreciated. This is often not the case in the world of the paycheck.
Volunteers have more flexibility in adjusting to the ups and downs of their psychiatric disability.
Because they are not under the pressure of the paycheck, they can always put their recovery and the maintenance of their psychiatric health first, where it belongs. First, there is such a tremendous need in this arena for manpower to accomplish the great challenges that face all of us with psychiatric disabilities. To be needed is one of the central qualities of having meaning in one's life. When I began volunteering at NAMI Ohio in the early 90s, I can recall the dramatic change I felt in my own recovery as I realized that now I was involved in finding solutions, in fighting stigma, in working for positive change instead of simply struggling with my illness. Third, volunteering within the NAMI family is one way to be certain that the work environment one enters will understand and respect the realities of brain disorders and the limitations of one's particular disability.