Jason Beaman spent years not asking for help.

That's the part we usually talk about. The silence. The stigma.

The veteran who carries it alone because asking feels like weakness.

But Jason did the hard thing. He asked.

And then the system taught him exactly why he shouldn't have. And it was not the kind of lesson we wanted him to learn!

His first assigned therapist told him she was leaving at their very first appointment. His second therapist left too. A third appointment was canceled with no explanation. After months of false starts, Jason gave up.

"I just quit," he said. "I don't want to mess with the therapist anymore."

He spent his days playing video games and walking his dogs. Alone. Think about that for a second.

Jason didn't lose to stigma. He beat stigma. He made the call. He showed up. He did the thing we've been telling veterans to do for years.

And the system handed him back every reason to never try again.

That's not a treatment failure. That's stigma manufactured by the system itself.

When a veteran finally decides to ask for help and gets met with cancellations, revolving door therapists, and 16-minute appointments, what do you think that teaches them? It teaches them what they already feared was true. That their pain isn't worth showing up for. That the help isn't real. That they were right to stay quiet.

Stigma doesn't only grow in silence. It grows in waiting rooms that never call back.

So what is actually happening at the VA right now?

A ProPublica investigation published March 13 found that one year into the second Trump administration, veterans across the country said it's become more difficult to get treatment, as hundreds of therapists and social workers have left the VA. Many have not been replaced.

The numbers are not subtle. The VA lost roughly 500 psychologists and psychiatrists between January 2025 and 2026. Social workers, many of them licensed therapists providing direct mental health counseling, declined by nearly 700 staffers over the same period.

These weren't layoffs. Front-line mental health workers were largely exempted from the job cuts. Hundreds chose to leave anyway. Some cited new administration policies. Others said they could no longer provide ethical care.

One clinician from Indiana wrote in an internal exit survey: "Support is no longer there to provide ethical and good care for these veterans." (MindSite News)

A VA psychologist in Arizona put it plainly: "It was always bad. And now it's at a breaking point." (ProPublica)

For the veterans who stayed in the system? Schedulers replaced one-on-one sessions with group sessions of up to 35 veterans. Individual appointments were cut to as little as 16 minutes. 🤯

Thirty-five veterans. One therapist. Sixteen minutes.

The VA called that an improvement. They pointed to a 4% increase in total appointments. But that number counts those 35-person group sessions. It doesn't tell us how many veterans actually got individual therapy. The kind that works.

VA Secretary Doug Collins told a Senate committee in January: "If you need emergency care, or are in a crisis situation, you have immediate care."

Jason Beaman wasn't in a crisis. He was trying to stay out of one.

That distinction matters.

Here's my clinical take…

I've worked with military clients and their families nearly every week since 2011. That’s 15 years. That's hundreds of clients, their families, and conversations. That’s hundreds of stories and hundreds of moments where someone finally said out loud what they had been carrying alone.

Many of them come to me because they are just another veteran who had been failed by the VA. 😢 

I want to be fair here. Some VAs are doing this right. My dad was seen at a VA in Tennessee for several years. He felt cared for. He was treated with professionalism and dignity. That's what it's supposed to look like.

But that's not what Jason Beaman got. And he's not alone.

The therapeutic relationship is not a bonus feature. It is the treatment. Continuity matters. Trust matters. Trauma work requires a safe relationship built over time. Not a rotating cast of strangers and a 16-minute clock.

When we celebrate veterans asking for help, that is not the finish line. That is the starting gun. The system has to be there when they arrive.

When it isn't, when a veteran asks for help and gets met with chaos, cancellations, and abandonment, we don't just fail that veteran. We confirm every lie stigma ever told them. We make it harder for the next one to pick up the phone.

Stigma grows in silence. But it also grows in systems that treat veterans like they aren't worth showing up for.

Jason Beaman finally made it to an appointment in January. Months late. After ProPublica started asking questions. The VA reached out only after reporters called.

He shouldn't have needed a journalist to get a therapist.

What you can do this week.

✅ Read the full ProPublica investigation and share it. It's here. This story needs more eyes.

✅ Contact your U.S. Senator or Representative. Tell them VA mental health staffing is a crisis, not a talking point. Find your rep at house.gov.

✅ If you're a veteran struggling to access VA care, the Veterans Crisis Line is available 24/7. Call or text 988, then press 1.

Until next Friday, come back. Be here. 💙

— Keith

P.S. - A few years ago, I wrote a book about counseling veterans, mainly for mental health professionals & students who want to work with military clients, and I’ve been told by those that are not in mental health that you can still learn a lot about military from the book. So, here’s more information if you’re interested in reading more! Link: https://a.co/d/03enV4cX