What kind of mental illness could this be?

[Jon_Dahl]

NB! Important! I'm not asking a medical advice. I'm not asking for a diagnosis. I'm asking for an educated guess, that is all.

My girlfriend's best friend's mother is a normal woman in her 60s. She's a widow, a mother of one and she has had ups and downs in her life like everyone else. She's a smart and caring person.

However, she "kills" her daughter and my gf from embarrassment in public places. At any given moment, this older lady asks men the following questions:
"Do you find me beautiful?"
"Would you like to date me?"
"I'm single, you know? Right? Huh?"

Fortunately, basically all men understand that this is not normal and, in most cases, they politely avoid her. She does not listen when people (i.e. her daughter) try to talk sense to her. She just pretends not to hear. The aforementioned behavior is very constant and consistent. Other than this, she's normal.

In an attempt to comfort my gf, bring some order into chaos and help them to understand what could POSSIBLY cause this behavior, I would like you to voice your opinion: what could this be?

[Murk]

This is not a mental illness.

It might be desperate, but being desperate is not a mental illness.

Sorry to disappoint.

[Spiryt]

Probably some kind of exhibitionist disorder, that doesn't really qualify as 'full blown' mental illness.

[factotum]

How old are the men she's propositioning? If they're around her age then I'd say it could be just loneliness.

[Honest Tiefling]

If this is coupled with other behavior, it could be Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but even I think that's a stretch. Sounds like she is just rude.

[Jon_Dahl]

How old are the men she's propositioning? If they're around her age then I'd say it could be just loneliness.

Usually 20 to 40 years younger than her.

[The Succubus]

I really don't see this as any kind of mental illness at all - it's a behavioural quirk.


A few thoughts:

1) She is from a very different generation than the sort you and I are from and the behaviours she grew up with reflect that. Where as we would see something like this as possibly bordering on sexual harassment, she probably sees it as no more than playful teasing/being mischievous.

2) It could be loneliness as others have suggested. Loneliness can be a side effect of mental ill health but in and of itself, it isn't.

3) She could just enjoy winding her daughter up in front of others. Simple as that.


My guess would be 3.

[BWR]

The behavior itself without more detailed information about how it is done and how frequently, etc. cannot be determined to be the result of mental illness or not. My immediate guess would be joking and teasing her daughter coupled with a lack of understanding about how unpleasant this is for her.

[Winter_Wolf]

Is "completely tactless" a mental illness? Nah, she's just not getting that she has no nuance.

[Talanic]

Look, I'm not qualified to comment beyond sharing weird anecdotes. But one guy out there loved to exasperate everyone around him with puns and it turned out to be a symptom of brain cancer.

Is this a symptom of something similar? Heck if I know. Reminds me of an episode of House where an old woman started flirting with younger men because she was reaching late-stage syphilis. If you're really concerned - and maybe if this started suddenly and is in fact out of character for this woman - help your friend get her mother to a doctor. I am not in any position to offer any other advice.

[Razade]

Look, I'm not qualified to comment beyond sharing weird anecdotes. But one guy out there loved to exasperate everyone around him with puns and it turned out to be a symptom of brain cancer.

Ok. You need to explain how that works because that sounds like utter nonsense to me.

[Jon_Dahl]

Thank you, everyone, for the comments. After reading your posts, I have changed my mind. She's not nuts, she's just behaving poorly. As for the brain tumor: I'm not convinced about its possibility, but I appreciate that you mentioned it, Talanic.

[factotum]

Ok. You need to explain how that works because that sounds like utter nonsense to me.

Why? The brain is the seat of the thought, it seems entirely reasonable to me that brain damage caused by a tumour could cause people to act oddly and/or out of character.

[Razade]

Why? The brain is the seat of the thought, it seems entirely reasonable to me that brain damage caused by a tumour could cause people to act oddly and/or out of character.

It's not so much that. It's the claim that it made him love to annoy people. With puns specifically that trips my "something more is going on here". The brain is the seat of you also, not just thought.

[StarLightPips]

Narcissism, desperation or oldish person ****posting (this isn't a joke, I'm serious there is a good chance she's doing it for a laugh)

[Eldan]

It's not so much that. It's the claim that it made him love to annoy people. With puns specifically that trips my "something more is going on here". The brain is the seat of you also, not just thought.

At a guess, that person probably went from "makes a lot of jokes" to "permanently talks only in puns and doesn't stop when it annoys people". Lack of inhibition is a common symptom of a lot of brain changes.

[Talanic]

Only the abstract's available here without pay:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26900737

It made the news circuit a few months back. It's called Witzelsucht, and now that I'm reading up on it, a related condition is hypersexuality - the tendency to make sexual comments at inappropriate times or situations. In both conditions, one of the major symptoms is that the sufferer is unable to understand their behavior as abnormal, and therefore will not take peoples' reactions seriously.

Anyway, regarding Witzelsucht, sufferers couldn't understand more complicated jokes and would make puns at every opportunity. The abstract notes that damage to specific areas of the brain can (but as with many brain injuries, is not guaranteed to) cause it.

[Razade]

Yeah, I'm not seeing anything related to brain cancer anywhere in relation to Witzelsucht. Both major cases were, as far as I can tell, caused by frontal lobe trauma. Both seemed to be caused by strokes, not brain cancer.

[Talanic]

So it was. My memory failed me.

[Jon_Dahl]

So it was. My memory failed me.

It's ok, it was nevertheless interesting tô read about subject.