I Hid Things Everywhere, Even From Myself: The Compulsion Nobody Warned Me About

The Compulsion to Conceal: When Your Brain Turns Everything Into a Hiding Place

By Liam Ronan

During my manic episode, I developed an obsession with hiding things. Not the normal kind, like stashing a gift before a birthday. This was different. Everywhere I looked, I saw potential hiding places, and I felt driven to use them. Compulsive. Delusional. Maybe even paranoid.

I remember writing in my notes at the time: “Hiding things all the time, even from myself and then forgetting where they are.” That sentence captures the exact problem. I would hide something, feel satisfied by the act of concealment, and then promptly forget where it was. The hiding became the point, not the storage.

The concept that crystallized in my mind was what I called “doors.” A door wasn’t just a door. It was any physical barrier between a hidden object and the world. A sheet could be a door. A towel could be a door. A cardboard box, a suitcase, a stack of books, a distraction. The more layers of doors between something and discovery, the better. The more protected. The more powerful.

I still haven’t found some of those things.

What I didn’t understand at the time was that this hiding behavior was a symptom. Not a character quirk. Not a personality preference. A symptom of my brain operating outside normal parameters.

During mania, your risk calculation breaks. You don’t evaluate consequences the way you normally would. You feel invincible, connected to everything, operating on a higher plane of understanding. In that state, hiding things felt necessary. Protective. Smart. Like I was one step ahead of everyone else, concealing what only I could understand the value of.

I’ve learned since then that compulsive hiding during manic or hypomanic episodes shows up in other people too. It’s not unique to me. Control was an illusion behind yet another door.

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