My brother and I have Maladaptive Daydreaming since we were very small.
My brother used a stick at the end of which hung a pencil from some string when he was younger to trigger his daydreams. He would flick the stick about, making the pencil bounce, while jumping around himself. He made sound effects himself (mostly gunshots, blasts and shouts) with his mouth to accompany the daydreams.
He actually introduced me to MD when I was five and he was four and I started doing it with my hands. I would flick them from side to side when I daydreamed.
Sometimes, I would act my daydreams out by walking around, talking, a few times even crying.
I always just assumed I would grow out of this weird thing when I was a teenager, but it didn’t happen. And then one night, I stumbled across “Maladaptive Daydreaming” on the Internet and everything suddenly made sense. I was so relieved and excited that I wasn’t alone.
I read more about Maladaptive Daydreaming and was a little disappointed that everyone who had it seemed to say it was ruining their lives and originated from abuse.
My brother and I never suffered abuse and eventhough I think we have MD pretty strongly, we function well and I am a very happy and social person. I didn’t understand how we had gotten MD in the first place, then.
But then I remembered that time we were at my grandparents’ place when we were about ten and nine. There was a football match on TV and my grandfather was watching. While he watched, he rubbed his hands together excitedly the entire time and didn’t seem to notice until I asked him about it.
This seems like a crazy idea, but can Maladaptive Daydreaming be genetic? It would make sense that my grandfather has it slightly because he lived through the war.