‘You lose all hope’: Federal workers gripped by mental health instability amid Trump cuts
The call that would upend his life came 11 years ago.
His daughter had hanged herself; she was now on life support.
He rushed to her bedside, but eventually the time came when the machine would be turned off.
The father placed his hand on his daughterās chest, found her heartbeat and willed her to hang on.
Her heart slowed and slowed and slowed. Then it stopped.
She was gone.
The anguish crashed down on him like a tank, compounding the despair he carried after another suicide 14 years earlier. He and his brother had found his father, a Vietnam War veteran, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In an interview, the 54-year-old suicide prevention case manager with the Department of Veterans Affairs painfully recalled his agonizing journey, which also included beating cancer, as he grappled with a new crisis of his own.
The world he turned to for salvation ā returning to school at age 46, specifically to become a social worker so he could work in suicide prevention with veterans ā was now in turmoil.
Like the roughly 2 million workers across the federal government, he is watching his colleagues and the veterans heās trying to help lose their livelihoods or weather a barrage of messages that federal workers have no value ā often coming directly from the president and the people he has empowered.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
āWhen you have a purpose in life and you found your thing, and then all of a sudden itās being destroyed ā you lose all hope,ā the suicide prevention manager said, his voice fading. The federal worker, like others quoted in this story, asked that he remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.Ā āI hurt for everybody whoās impacted by it, you know? I mean, I hate to say it, but I work in suicide prevention and I had thoughts. Iāve had thoughts of not wanting to be here anymore.ā
NBC News spoke with 20 federal employees across agencies. Spanning the country, these workers lost their jobs, watched co-workers lose them or endured what amounted to a Goliath joyously stomping on David. In interviews, federal workers ā many of whom are veterans ā told of overwhelming stress, personal crises, suicidal ideation, rapid weight loss, prolonged lack of sleep, panic attacks and visiting the emergency room after a mental breakdown.
Theyāre facing bombardment from every angle, some showing screenshots to reporters of offensive messages delivered over text and social media, which in turn echo misinformation that billionaire Elon Musk has elevated on his X platform ā for example that federal workers are lazy, that they themselves are a source of waste and fraud, and that they donāt bother to come to the office.
Some, particularly veterans or those who assist veterans, expressed fury theyāre being denigrated by Musk and a president who never wore a military uniform. Trump, a president for whom some of them voted, even posted an insulting meme about federal workers on his Truth Social account that showed an image of the cartoon character SpongeBob holding a list.
It read, āGot done last week,ā an apparent reference to Muskās request of federal workers that they send an email pointing to five things they did at work. āCried about Trump. Cried about Elon. Made it into the office for once. Read some emails. Cried about Trump and Elon some more.ā
Sarah Boim, a 38-year-old who was fired from her job with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said she grew so distraught that her therapist told her to find a psychiatrist and immediately get on an antidepressant. Boim said she and her husband cannot pay their mortgage on one income and she is desperately searching for work.
āYour career is ripped away from you, with no money to move forward,ā Boim said. āI have bipolar. Itāll mess up my life if I have an episode. So weāre just trying to be really careful. Iām hearing stuff like that across the agency.ā
āI knew there would be reorganization. I wasnāt expecting this level of chaos,ā Boim added. āTaking a sledgehammer approach and having an unelected billionaire in my email is just insane. What are his qualifications for doing this? The government is not a startup; we have been in business since 1776.ā
Some who voted for Trump said they regret believing him as a candidate when he said he rejected Project 2025, whose co-author Russell Vought said he wanted to put federal civil servants āin trauma.āĀ Once in office, Trump tapped Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a powerful post.
āWe want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,ā Vought said in a speech in the lead-up to the Nov. 4 election. āWhen they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.ā
So far, they say, Vought is succeeding.
One Department of Defense employee who did two tours in Iraq said his post-traumatic stress disorder was triggered to the point that he called a suicide hotline, then visited an emergency room at a veterans hospital. The employee said he and colleagues felt unspeakable frustration and anger after relentless mocking by Musk that was supported by Trump, who he said appeared to be delighting in the distress of his own workforce.
The worker said his episode emerged the weekend Musk made a display of joyously lifting a chainsaw while appearing at a conservative conference. In that same period, employees were deluged with messaging from Muskās Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, that ranged from termination notices to confusing emails that were often contradicted by supervisors.
āItās not about the layoffs. Itās about a dehumanization of who we are and what we do,ā he said, noting he voted for Trump because he liked what the president did in his first stint in office. Now, he said, he carries guilt over his Trump vote after he watched co-workers and other veterans at the emergency room. āWe donāt do it for the applause. We do it to serve our country and serve our community. You get into public service not for the money but because you want to be part of something greater than yourself.ā
Katherine Freeman had been working for 10 months as an administrative assistant for the CDC specializing in tuberculosis when she received a mass email saying she had been fired because of her performance. She had received only positive performance reviews and was in line for a promotion.
āThis really knocked me off my feet to get a generic letter that is basically a template. It didnāt even have my name on it. It was just attached to an email,ā said Freeman. āTo tell people who are performing well that theyāre being terminated for poor performance and youāre not getting a severance package, thatās just a cruel way to to handle your employees. I think thatās what people are upset about.ā
āEverybody understands that the government needs to spend less money, and we get that. But if youāre going to do a layoff, do a layoff the right way.ā
One VA worker who was just fired, a mother of three young kids, said colleagues all around her are sinking into hopelessness.
āYou wonder what is going to happen in the world, in general. What will that look like for our children?ā she said. āFor other peopleās kids, they say, āItās not just my life, but my childrenās lives. Where are we going?āā
A different VA worker who served in the Navy for more than a decade described having dropped 20 pounds in a month and losing her hair. She, like others, described behavior from Musk and Trump as taunting and triggering a sense of powerlessness and anger. Reaching a breaking point, she called a suicide hotline for help.
āServing my vets is what I live for. They need me. They need an understanding person on the other end of the phone call,ā said the woman. āI will be destroyed if they fire me.ā
None of the workers opposed cutting excess. But many described what they saw playing out in their agencies as chaotic and haphazard ā like rushing to push boxes off a sinking Titanic without looking at what was inside.Ā Some said their abrupt dismissal would leave programs in the lurch, like those that help farmers or facilitate trade for small businesses.
āIām like so many other government employees I talked to. Itās their f—–g mission in life to help veterans who are struggling. Please quote me on that,ā the VA suicide prevention manager said. āIāve yet to have a person that can, to my face, tell me that my job is not needed. I just tell people what I do and ask them to explain to me: What part of my job is waste or fraud?ā
The defense employee, whose job entails refurbishing and updating technology on Navy ships, said the constant attack on federal workers has made him want to walk away, move to the private sector and draw a bigger salary. But he recalled during one of his Army tours in Iraq that his unit needed armor reinforcement on its Humvee. A federal worker came through for him in that perilous moment.
āI get to do that now, with sailors in the Navy. Iām working to help sailors in the Navy be prepared to engage the Chinese if they go after Taiwan,ā the defense worker said. āIām not going to quit, not going to give up. Because Iām not just giving up on my country, Iām giving up on the sailor and the war fighter that is going to be in immense danger if I do that.ā
āThatās what a lot of us are remembering: what we do and why we do it, and itās bigger than this stupid political stuff. This is peopleās lives.ā
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or textĀ 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis LifelineĀ or chat live atĀ 988lifeline.org. You can also visitĀ SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resourcesĀ for additional support.
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