Mental Illness
In October 1998, Rau was hospitalised for three months, after her unstable behaviour probably brought on by a Kenja "Eisteddfod". At the time, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but doctors later diagnosed her with schizophrenia. At one point, doctors believed that Rau had schizoaffective bipolar.
Between January 1999 and March 2004, Rau was hospitalised several more times after further incidents of unstable behaviour. On several occasions, she disappeared for a few days, and sometimes she travelled overseas, but she had always returned or made contact with her family, usually with her sister, Chris Rau. On 1 December 2003, Rau disappeared, and was reported missing to the police by her family; however, she soon returned. Rau was prescribed medication for her condition and was often re-admitted to hospital, but she did not like to take treatment because she disliked the side effects. Eventually Rau's doctors and her family scheduled a community treatment order hearing for 18 March 2004, which would have compelled Rau to take her medication.
Read more about this topic: Cornelia Rau
Famous quotes related to mental illness:
“The entire construct of the ‘medical model’ of ‘mental illness’Mwhat is it but an analogy? Between physical medicine and psychiatry: the mind is said to be subject to disease in the same manner as the body. But whereas in physical medicine there are verifiable physiological proofs—in damaged or affected tissue, bacteria, inflammation, cellular irregularity—in mental illness alleged socially unacceptable behavior is taken as a symptom, even as proof, of pathology.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)