Does my friend have a mental illness?

[muyscully]

Hi,

I would like to get your opinion on my friend who i suspect may have a mental illness. I don't think I could convince her to get help, but for my sake, it would help me be a better friend.

My friend Dina is in her 60s and is a retired special needs teacher. She has helped many visually impaired/deaf/special needs kids in the school system. She got along really well with those kid and made a difference in their lives.

Dina was in a physically abusive marriage and suffered 3 miscarriages due to abuse.

She is currently in her 60s, alone with no family left.

For as long as I've known her, Dina has had memory problems. Everytime i would see her, she would ask me to write down my NAME, ADDRESS, BIRTHDAY, ANNIVERSARIES, PHONE NUMBER, EMAIL. For years, she would keep "losing" this information and need me to give it to her again. Last year I told her that I wouldn't anymore and she had a "meltdown" in the restaurant. She put her head in her hands and cried and then put her head onto the table. I was shocked that it had meant so much to her.

She had short term and long term memory problems too. After our conversation, she would forget bits and pieces of things we've just talked about (really basic information). She would also think that something happened last week that totally didn't happen.

Dina lived by herself and never gave out her own address (even though she trusts me, she wouldn't tell me). For years I suspected she was a hoarder because her car would be filled to the brim and she had 3 public storage facilities packed full. She has attempted to clean out the public storage spaces for at least the past 10 years.

As a special needs teacher, Dina really connected to her students. She was the fun teacher because she could be goofy with the kids. She gave a lot of hugs. When I was volunteering for her as a high school student, we got along well because we mostly talked about my problems. But as a grown up, i realize how little Dina wanted to share about herself. When i encouraged her to contact her long distance friend, she would say that she didn't want to be a "bother."

Dina had a way of overcompensating for how much she liked you. For example, she could say over and over again "I'm so proud of you... you're great.. you're wonderful... ". Instead of having deep conversations, she would cut things off by saying praises over and over again. I think she praises people constantly to avoid intimacy. My husband thinks she does it because of a lack of empathy.... that Dina overcompensates to disguise the fact that she can't be intimate with people.

This month, I wrote to Dina telling her that my dad passed away under bad circumstances. She replied " cares and prayers... Dina." I was kind of surprised because most people expressed a lot more than that. At the very least, people showed concern for my mom. I wrote to Dina again apologizing for our lack of communication (twice!) and she hasn't gotten back to me.
As a test, I wrote another email thanking her for my Christmas card and she immediately wrote back "You're welcome... my pleasure!! LOVE YOU LOTS!!!!"

Dina also had quirks like needing to sit facing the flow of action when we're at a restaurant. She needed to keep an eye on the waiters and passerbyers.

Thank you for reading this far into my post. I hope you can give me some insight for my friend.

Thanks,

Sandra

[muyscully]

I also forgot to say that at the very least, i think Dina is suffering from depression. She has major low self esteem issues.

She is contradictory in the sense that she is playful and friendly with acquaintances (waiters, store clerks, church people...) but really depressed when you get to know her better.

Her personality is very much "woe is me" (everybody did her wrong in someway) ...

[ether667]

From what I know from my own personal experience, memory loss can be part of depression. I've suffered from it as long as I can remember and it's only added to feelings of guilt and anxiety in social situations. The way I've found that helps aside from being meds that treat depression and anxiety is to get into the habit of writing everything down as soon as you are tasked with it. My iPhone is a godsend for this purpose as I can sync this information to my email and other devices with alerts so that I have no excuses for forgetting. Being forgetful seems to be something in our culture in which if you have this issue, many people will have low tolerance for.

If she's in her 60s I feel like there's still tons of hope though. If its dementia that's another thing that I know very little about, though with depression if you can build a positive habit and have some kind of way to stay on track with it, yo u can reduce the problem significantly.

That being said, I'm not 100% there yet myself. Practicing something you preach is a whole different ball game lol

[muyscully]

Thank you ether667! i've never talked about my friend before in an open forum before. Thank you for your input... the more I know, the better friend i can be to her.