What mental illness/psychological disorder does Jeanettes mother have?

She says that she is an "excitement addict." That sounds very much like one who suffers from bipolar disease, earlier called manic-depressive in earlier editions of DSM. Jeanette's mother found most mundane tasks to not provide any excitement for her; she painted like a fiend and found that a kind of high.

There is actually allot of theories written about what is wrong with Jeanette’s mother. I don't know about a DSM category because her condition, if she has one, remains debatable. Judging from mother's strange emotional reactions, I think she suffers from a personality disorder and a huge case of narcissism. The nature of specific personality disorders are difficult to speculate on though.