Hi there,

I've never done this before but after visiting the original Psych Central site I found some solace for my problems in other peoples responses, but I'm still feeling worried about my own individual issues. Please forgive me for how long this post is going to be, its just that there is quite a timeline to what I've gone through.

I'm a university student currently studying Biochemistry in my third year. These problems have proved additionally problematic since I am supposed to be doing my finals right now, but have had to postpone them because of the severe anxiety I've been feeling. My housemates and I have for the past year and a half been using cannabis, starting as a fairly semi-regular habit to becoming an obligatory part of every day. I've never had any problems or bad experiences whilst using cannabis at all until this one episode, and has always been something I supported and defended under accusations of being harmful, dangerous, etc. One night in mid-february I was just about to go to bed, and begun having very acute anxiety surrounding being trapped within certain time periods, or at least feeling like I was stuck in various mood-scapes I have experienced for a while (writing this I understand that may not make sense, but its not too central to this point). The most prominent idea that I can link to what I was feeling was a realisation that the universe at a very relative level exists first of all within your own mind, and even though that seems fairly obvious, I was previously always very willing to accept life and my perspective as the uniform standard. This could also be interpreted as, thinking the world revolved around me, which thinking about it is possibly the way I used to think, which could tot this whole experience up to 'growing up' which I wouldn't necessarily mind :P. But it seems to be affecting me in a far more sinister manner than I think is normal, with this experience leading onto ideas of solopsism, which carried with it obvious and very intense feelings of paranoia.

I have however partially dealt with those feelings, but as of recently my over-thinking tendencies have taken a far more sinister turn. It begun with me questioning how I understand things, as a prime example, people talking to me, how does my brain know what they're saying and how do I understand and know what to say back to them. This has led to, as stupid as it sounds, a fear of my own imagination, possibly relating to the intense fear I felt surrounding the ideas of the world not existing outside of my own imagination on that bad cannabis induced trip. It has now grown to me being scared of my own consciousness, wondering why I am able to understand things, who am I, why am I here, all very existential arguments, but they are sending me into panic, and I worry that I am in some way rejecting reality, and one day it'll all just snap, and I'll become some sort of vegetable or jellyfish like entity (pardon me for the crudeness of that analogy)

I'm really sorry if I've posted this in the wrong place or if I shouldn't even be posting here, I just don't know what to do, and was really hoping someone had some advice for me, since these thought patterns have led me into a very suicidal avenue which I can't bare thinking about.

Thank you so much for any help.