AKRON, Ohio — In light of the events surrounding the Jayland Walker case, Akron’s community of faith leaders and activists are opening their door for those, like Charity Burton, who are experiencing emotional fatigue.
“I’m tired of hearing about this. I’m tired of another name. Another hashtag. Another one,” said Burton.
As the mom of a 19-year-old son, Charity Burton tells News 5’s Remi Murrey she fears for her son’s safety.
“I don’t know what would happen if he complied. I don’t know what would happen if he doesn’t comply. It seems like the same results,” said Burton.
Feeling hopeless, Burton and others like Laura DeAngelo keep showing up at various demonstrations, despite the fact they say they feel their concerns aren’t being heard.
“It’s just increasing you know? 10-fold, and we’re not learning from our lessons. In fact, it’s like we’re going backwards,” said DeAngelo.
As the community continues to march the streets of Akron, local pastors are opening their doors to offer a space of healing.
“I was asked by the city to try to bring together groups of people so that we would be able to respond in a more holistic way,” said Bishop Joey Johnson of The House of the Lord.
Johnson says he knows far too well the community is growing tired.
“We have a traumatized nation, and we need help,” said Johnson.
The trauma Johnson describes is what Licensed Clinical Psychologist Dr. Tyffani Monford Dent calls emotional fatigue.
“There's only so much that a person can take in, in terms of trauma before it becomes very taxing, before it weighs on your emotional health,” said Monford Dent. “That's what we're experiencing right now is this: we've been heightened so long with anger and with frustration and with feelings of hopelessness that now we're kind of moving into more hopelessness and helplessness.”
Because of this, Johnson and other faith-based leaders hope to provide resources through a new initiative focusing on tribes, trauma and triage.
Johnson says the goal is to have mental health professionals go into different communities, see what’s going on and prescribe what’s needed to heal.
“One of the things that we want to do is train people to be able to respond after the trauma has created perhaps even a post-traumatic stress reaction or some kind of physical reaction. We want to help people to be able to process that,” said Johnson.
Johnson understands it won’t be easy for people to share their feelings. But he and others are hopeful their ability to show they care will make a difference in the lives of those they say need it the most.
“We want to help people make better choices,” said Johnson. “Not fight and flight choices.”
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