Unusual Kit of Objects I Carried During My Manic Episode

Man carrying an overloaded backpack with camping gear on a rocky forest path

Cigarettes, Lighters, Pens, and the Desperate Need to Hold On to Something

By Liam Ronan

During my manic episode, I was never without my kit. Cigarettes. A lighter, sometimes two. Vapes. Paper and pens. A pocket knife. A flashlight. A towel. Breath mints and little candies. I carried all of it, all the time, as if my survival depended on having these objects within arm’s reach.

It did not. But my brain had decided otherwise, and my brain was running the show.

I was not a smoker before the episode. I started chain smoking almost overnight, fascinated by the ritual of it, the fire, the controlled breathing, the brief stillness it forced on me. Cigarettes became anchoring devices. When my thoughts were racing so fast I could not hold a conversation, I would light one and watch the flame and try to slow down.

The lighters mattered too. I developed an obsession with fire that I still find difficult to explain, and occasionally still enjoy. Candles burned everywhere I went. If I was in a hotel room, the surfaces were covered in tea lights. Fire felt primal, essential, like something my ancestors understood better than I did. I thought about how capturing fire was the thing that separated us from other species. In my manic state, holding a lighter felt like holding a piece of that original human power.

The pens were different. Any pen or pencil or stick with a burnt end could be a magic wand. That was not a metaphor. I genuinely believed it. I thought about how the first writing instruments were charcoal sticks, and how when ancient people wrote with them, the words became spells. When they wrote at length, they created scripture. A pen in my hand felt like a direct line to something sacred.

The breath mints and candies served a more practical purpose. I was incredibly impatient. I could not focus on anything for more than a minute. Popping a mint or a piece of candy was something I could do with my mouth that was not talking, because I was talking too much, too fast, and losing people mid-sentence. The mints were a leash I put on my own jaw.

What I realize now is that every object in my kit was an attempt at self-regulation. My brain was moving at a speed I could not control, and these small physical anchors gave me something to touch, something to focus on, something to do with my hands while the rest of me vibrated apart.

The salt cravings belong in this story too. I craved salt and minerals so intensely that I chewed vitamins like candy and tasted rocks. Actual rocks. I think it had something to do with the sheer electrical activity in my brain. It wanted minerals the way a car with a blown radiator wants coolant. I had no explanation for it at the time. I just followed the craving.

After the episode, I found stashes of these objects everywhere. In jacket pockets. Under car seats. In hotel drawers I forgot to clear out. Little archaeological deposits from a mind that could not hold still but desperately wanted to hold on.

Mania Insights