Local Marriage and Family Therapist, Gary Wardlaw and his wife Brittney, who is the Manager of Equity and Civil Rights at Baylor, started a massive peaceful demonstration in Waco on Sunday. The couple didn’t even start planning for the event until 9 a.m. that morning. After the success of the demonstration the Wardlaws want to continue spreading their message of getting help for those in need. Their slogan “i pray. i talk. i see a therapist.” started as a marketing slogan for Gary’s practice. Now, the slogan has taken on a new meaning.
“It really started out initially with the idea of, we want to tear down the stigma of mental health,” said Gary. “Period. Through prayer, through talking, through seeking professional help…..but then it switched. After Ahmaud, after George, Breonna, it became a framework for healing for the black community. For our allies. It became a ‘we need to make sure we’re doing a combination of all three.’ Because we are hurting as a people. And unless we heal from the trauma that we see, day in and day out, we are just going to perpetuate the cycle.”
The Wardlaws started a go-fund me in order highlight “HEALING from the unaddressed and ongoing trauma and racism African-Americans experience living in this country.”
“What we want to be able to do is fund people who are not able to pay for therapy or don’t have insurance to cover therapy,” said Brittney. “Fund the education of other therapist to become for culturally competent, so people are comfortable going to a therapist who don’t necessarily look like them.”
Gary says the mental trauma African Americans have faced has gone unaddressed for hundreds of years.
“So the mental trauma of growing up and thinking I am less than because of the color of my skin has residual effects,” said Gary. “The residual effects of slavery. So if you don’t deal with trauma, it really turns into anger and hopelessness and helplessness to where you just say, ‘I give up.’ So that is why it’s really important to address the trauma that we’ve been through from a mental health healing perspective, because we haven’t had it.”
—KWTX
