(NewsNation) — Army veteran Joseph Cantasano is going viral on social media after sharing his struggles getting regular mental health support from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“I just want some continuity in care dude. I’m so tired of it,” Cantasano said in the video as he struggled to speak through tears. “The VA has continued to let me down.”
Cantasano recorded the video after finding out his mental health provider would no longer be able to take him on as a patient. He says he has received care from the VA, but his doctors are constantly changing, with seven different doctors over the past six years.
The Florida-based veteran didn’t want to share his diagnosis but described the process of trying to obtain care as a “maze filled with red tape.”
Cantasano spoke to NewsNation about the reaction to his video, saying, “I absolutely do feel like I did the right thing posting it. I’ve shown myself raw, which a lot of people are uncomfortable doing. It really showed the greatness of the situation that, you know, tens of thousands of veterans are facing and the struggle that they’re going through trying to find quality mental health care and continuity in mental health care.”
The VA said they couldn’t discuss the claims in Cantasano’s video due to patient privacy.
Cantasano’s video got about 765,000 views, catching the attention of many, including the VA. The day after posting the video, the VA offered to help him with his case.
Twenty-four veterans die by suicide every day, a recent America’s Warrior Partnership study found. Most are diagnosed with depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I, like a lot of veterans, waited way too long to get care and to reach out. I spent a little over ten years kind of telling myself what I was dealing with couldn’t be PTSD because I didn’t feel like I had earned it,” veteran and author Jason Kander said. “That’s what most veterans think because when you’re in the military, one of the things you’re taught is, somebody has it worse.”
From 2001 to 2015, as many as 500,000 troops have been diagnosed with PTSD, according to data from the VA.
“We memorialize all those who have fallen in service to our country, in combat. But imagine if we built a wall for all of the individuals who committed suicide as a direct result of the shortcomings of the mental health care in this country,” Cantasano said. “Imagine how big that wall would be. It’d be gigantic.”