Tui Taurua: Into the light

Tui Taurua: Into the light

Tui Taurua is living “a vibrant life” after two decades of being in and out of psychiatric hospitals. With her husband, Haami Peihopa, of Ngāti Hine, Pipiwai. (Photo supplied.) Tui Taurua describes herself as a “mental health warrior”. After more than two decades in and out of psychiatric hospitals, being over-medicated and misdiagnosed, she turned to te ao Māori for answers. It saved her life, as she tells Dale Husband in this kōrero. Now, she …

Laura Guckian is a 39-year-old mother of the family. If everything seems to be going in the right direction in her current life, her son's arrival, Leo, had been right about her mental health. It was in 2016, the mother of the family was at the top of her marketing career in Dublin at the time. She had also just married her partner, Brendan Guckian, now 38 years old. Unfortunately, her son's arrival was far from the magical image she imagined.