Read what Clubhouse means to Jennifer in her “Clubhouse Manifesto.” Your donation truly makes a difference.

Clubhouse is lifechanging because it promotes the dignity and respect of human life through the opportunities for community, belonging, equity and meaningful work. Research has shown the benefits of community and belonging. Equity is what enables people with disabilities to accomplish the task of living. However, at Clubhouse, the basis for achieving all of these things is the work.

Clubhouse has recognized that the work itself is what gives people dignity, and not the income, prestige, power, or fame that can come from having a job or career. While these things can be nice, it is the work itself that is the truly meaningful part of what we do as humans. In most jobs, in most fields, the point of the work is service of others in some respect. At Clubhouse, we get to serve others who suffer in a similar way that we do, and in doing so, we serve ourselves. While all of our stories are different, we have the shared experience of living with a serious mental illness and the stigma that society holds towards this set of experiences and its outward manifestations.

I believe that the goal for most of us who live with mental illness is recovery. Like success, recovery has as many different versions as there are people who attain it. However, in a general sense, recovery from mental illness usually means the ability to live with a remission in symptoms, functioning to one’s greatest capacity and living a healthy and meaningful life. Meaning and fullness are achieved primarily through connection and community.

Community is what fosters a sense of belonging, and there is no community without connection. However, I argue that having something to do with one’s time is actually the primary concern.

People tend to do something when they are gathered. They discuss, they joke, they argue, they eat, they cook, they clean, they make plans. This is basic family behavior, but it is also central to the work environment. Both family and the workplace are communities. At Clubhouse, we are coworkers, but we are also family. This aspect of Clubhouse is particularly important for our members who are elderly or isolated to the point that they have no childhood friends or family left. As Clubhouse family and colleagues, we participate in the life of a typical community, but our impact extends beyond our space to the greater community. This is accomplished not only by our very existence, but also by what we do together.

And, coincidentally, what we tend to do is to promote our very existence as a Clubhouse. Much of our work-ordered-day is filled with operations-oriented tasks. These include tracking data regarding our impact as a Clubhouse, reaching out to absent and inactive members, maintenance tasks, responding to emails, managing social media, expense reporting, and operating a café and a scratch kitchen that provides snacks and meals to members, staff, and visitors at a steeply reduced rate. These operations tasks are found in any business, but in Clubhouse they are more meaningful because they are related to a cause that is close to the heart of every member. After all, who doesn’t find self-preservation to be a worthy cause?

However, beyond self-preservation, Clubhouse promotes shared experiences, human dignity, and the value of all lives—even our own. Often, from political rhetoric and the way others tend to treat us in public, it seems as though the greater society would prefer it if we did not exist. However, we are alive, and that is one of the paradoxes we must cope with living as persons living with severe mental illness. We value our lives—at least, most of us seem to most of the time.

This brings us to suicide. Why does society seem to despise the severely mentally ill, but not condone suicide? I believe that it is because of our shared human experience that we are driven to value life in the abstract. We agree that every human life should be treated with dignity, but the reality of it is that some lives are valued more than others by society. I believe that each person is destined to experience a life filled with good experiences, regardless of their circumstances. I also believe that we live in community so we can lift each other out of the painful depths of the human experience. Because of this, I believe that suicide reflects a moral deficiency not in the person who died, but in the culture around them for failing to offer the support and appreciation that was due them as a human being and was necessary for them to cope with whatever struggles were real, oppressive, and seemingly interminable enough to resort to the ultimate escape route.

Life with a serious mental illness is very difficult, and also very painful. The symptoms alone cause severe anguish, and are often lifelong. The isolation from and stigmatization by society on top of that is also hard to bear, especially if one is suffering alone. Due to the nature of our illnesses, we often find ourselves doing just that, even without taking stigmatization into account.

When we connect with each other in the community of people with severe mental illness, we find the support and affirmation of our experience that we crave as human beings. Not only that, but we work to promote a better world where we are included in society and our lives are celebrated as another valued facet of the human experience. Whether we give tours, sit at the greeter’s desk, wash dishes, take out the trash, or assist with attendance, we all play a part in promoting this vision of a better society.

We take the confidence we gain in this space doing this work out into our daily lives beyond Clubhouse. We form relationships in the community. We improve relationships with our family and friends. We attend treatment, therapy and support groups—activities which are not superfluous, but vital to managing the symptoms that, left untreated, would otherwise prevent us from doing such simple things as understanding a conversation, keeping a regular schedule, or getting out of bed. We participate in church services, clubs, and other community organizations. We volunteer at other places in the community. We serve as board members for nonprofit organizations. And, yes, we even have jobs—sometimes even jobs that enable us to be fully self-sufficient.

I maintain that this would not be possible without doing the work of Clubhouse first—without learning to appreciate the value of our own existence and that of others who suffer like us and our fundamental right to dignity and respect. This is why Clubhouse is deeply meaningful and life-changing to those of us who choose to participate.