Federal Workers PTSD-Like Symptoms Reported by 95% in Survey After Firings

Federal workers show PTSD-like symptoms. It's a defining and deeply troubling feature of the mass firings that reshaped the workforce during Donald Trump's second term. And a detailed canvassing of more than 300 fired probationary employees found that 95% still wrestle with ongoing mental health consequences, a figure that exposes the human wreckage behind the political calculus of government downsizing.

95% Report Lasting Mental Health Effects

The raw numbers paint a stark picture. Nearly half of the respondents said they are experiencing symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. A quarter have started taking new medications to manage what they are going through. These are not abstract statistics. They are people scattered across 43 states and the US Virgin Islands, former employees of 12 different departments spanning 15 agencies, bureaus, and subgroups.

27UNIHTED, a network of former National Institutes of Health employees, gathered the responses. The group has become an informal support structure and advocacy voice for the thousands swept out of government service in the middle of their probationary periods, meaning they had been on the job for a year or two when the termination notices arrived without warning.

New Medications for a Quarter

More than 25,000 workers were cut during their probationary window. They represent just a sliver of the broader purge. Since the start of the administration, more than 300,000 federal workers have been laid off, pushed to resign, or nudged into early retirement. But the probationary group occupies a unique category: newer hires, many of them early in their careers, who had barely settled into their roles before being told they no longer had one.

• 95% of surveyed probationary employees reported continuing mental health effects
• Nearly half described PTSD-like symptoms
• 25% are taking new prescription medications for symptom management
• Respondents worked across 15 agencies, bureaus, and subgroups in 12 departments

"Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop"

Brier Ryver, a park ranger at the Crystal River national wildlife refuge in Florida, the state's only manatee sanctuary, was leading a six-week children's education program when she learned they'd terminated another probationary colleague. Then her own notice came. A temporary reinstatement arrived in March 2025, driven by a court order. But the reprieve lasted only weeks. By May, she was fired again.

Instability was apparent. So Ryver said, "I love that job, so I went back to it, but the instability was very apparent," and her voice carries the exhaustion of someone who tried to rebuild and watched the foundation crack a second time. "Even now, still talking to people who are still reinstated, it still feels like they're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The psychological toll compounds. It's hard to capture in a survey checkbox. Ryver described federal workers PTSD-like symptoms that have followed her into a new role entirely. "I still have PTSD-like symptoms in my own life that are impacting my ability to work, and although I'm in a different role now, it's still at the back of my mind, what happened to us.

An Award Winner Fired Without Warning

Christa Reynolds spent eight years as a contractor for the NIH before accepting a staff position as a program analyst. She was thriving. "I felt like I was doing really well. I got an award from my department, I got really good performance reviews," Reynolds said. "Then just like out of nowhere, this illegal firing took place."

Reynolds helped conduct the survey and has been tracking the fallout closely. She pointed to a comment Russell Vought, the Project 2025 architect who now leads the Office of Management and Budget, made in a private setting in 2024, long before his appointment. "We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected," Vought said.

"It just seems like a terrible thing to say. You're targeting people who have dedicated their careers to helping the country." , Christa Reynolds

Reynolds expressed deep disappointment that a federal judge's September ruling declared the probationary firings unlawful but stopped short of ordering reinstatement, and the judge voiced concern that the Supreme Court would overrule any such relief. But it's a meaningless victory.

A Court Win Without Justice

Terminations should never have happened. But the ruling confirmed what many of the fired employees already believed, and without reinstatement, the decision landed as a moral vindication without a remedy, yet the momentum hasn't swung back in their favor. Workers filed appeals with the Merit Systems Protection Board, and several related court cases remain active.

The danger's clear. So Ryver framed the broader danger clearly when she said, "These unlawful terminations that should have never happened in the first place have had deep personal impacts," and she added that, in her view, the firings set a precedent that could allow the federal government to shed employees on a whim, civil service protections notwithstanding.

Job Market Reality Contradicts White House

One in five remained jobless. That's as of January 31. But among those who landed new positions, 49% reported earning significantly less than they did in government service, and a modest 11% found another role within the federal government. The numbers tell a story of downward mobility, not the thriving private-sector rebound that administration officials have described.

Survey data contradicts Trump. In January, Trump claimed that fired federal workers are 'getting sometimes twice as much money, three times as much money' and 'they're getting much better jobs and much higher pay.' But for every person who may have leveled up, nearly half of those re-employed are making considerably less.

• 20% of respondents unemployed as of late January
• 49% of those with new jobs earning significantly less
• 11% secured another federal government position

Scientists Flee the Country

Dr. Whitney Behr started as a biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in June 2024. By February 2025, she was fired while traveling for a work training event, caught in the probationary net. "I moved out of my apartment immediately after being fired because I knew I couldn't afford it anymore, and moved in with family a few hours away," Behr said.

It's a temporary court-ordered reinstatement. The writing was on the wall. "It also seemed like they were going to fire us again," she said. But by the time agencies began terminating probationary employees for a second round in May 2025, Behr had already accepted a job offer in the United Kingdom.

She is not alone. More than 10,000 doctoral-trained experts in science and related fields have left the United States since the start of the administration, according to an analysis published by Science. The brain drain is accelerating. "There are a lot of PhD-level scientists that the government lost," Behr said. "There are species going extinct right now and there's just nothing we can do about it. There are projects that were paid for that are not getting completed."

Her frustration hardened. It's sharper. She described a sense of 'rage at the open theft' of American taxpayers, who are funding a federal government that is dismantling its own capacity to function. So Behr said, 'I would like people to be aware of what has been stolen from them, and not just our careers.' And she added, 'I would like people to understand they're being stolen from in ways that may not be able to be repaired.

The Long Shadow of Mass Firings

The White House deferred comment to the Office of Personnel Management. Multiple requests for comment to OPM went unanswered. The silence from the agencies responsible for the firings stands in contrast to the detailed accounts gathered from the workers themselves, people who describe federal workers PTSD-like symptoms that linger months after the termination notices arrived.

For Ryver, Reynolds, Behr, and hundreds of others, the experience has reshaped their relationship with work, with government, and with the notion of job security itself. The court cases grind forward. The appeals process inches along. In the meantime, thousands of skilled professionals are scattered across a job market that has not welcomed them at the level they once occupied.

But it's no footnote. Nearly half the survey respondents described PTSD-like symptoms that are the signature injury of a workforce dismantled at speed, and they won't vanish when the headlines move on.