Taylar Nuevelle
Taylar Nuevelle’s story is one detailing the link between trauma and mental illness and the extreme difficulty in getting support. Taylar was incarcerated for four and a half years and has only recently realized in her late 40s that she has trauma induced mental illness from extreme childhood abuse and domestic violence as an adult. After many years of silence, and finally speaking about her abusive experience with a schoolteacher, a policeman had to deem her ‘a problem case’, in order to get her a hearing and have her enter the foster care system. Her social worker, foster parents, judge, lawyer, schoolteachers, and councillers were blind to her depression, anxiety and PTSD due to years of abuse which she later continued to be a victim of by prison staff. Taylar is now the Founder and CEO of Who Speaks For Me?, an organization which aims to build a trauma informed justice system and offer alternatives to incarceration for women and girls. www.whospeaks4me.org
