Throwaway account

Hi HN. I need some help to deal with my mental situation. I have some suicidal thoughts sometimes.

I am from a "third world" country. I came to United States five years ago via the "green card lottery". I was finishing my bachelor's of science in software engineering back then. I was so poor that all I could afford was the visa fees and one way airline tickets to America for myself and my wife. When I got the visa, it had a deadline before the time I could finish my degree.

I dropped out and came to the U.S because of my visa situation. I was able to find a software engineering job in a couple of months and get my life started without having to finish my degree. You know the drill, if someone is a good programmer there is always a job for them.

Five years passed and I got much better at what I was doing. I moved from company to company and got better jobs and pay.

After trying Google interviews for two time I finally got a job at Google. Dream came true! I was able to work my way up to the Google job. I was so proud of myself.

When Google sent me their background check from I mistakenly marked "graduated" in the form where it asked if I finished my degree. I thought it's asking if I did bachelor's degree or something. I went to computer science/software engineering school for four years after high school. I just didn't have the certificate. I dropped in middle of the last semester.

A couple of week in the job I got an email from HR saying that I claimed I have a bachelor's degree while they can't confirm it via their background check system. I replied I really didn't get the actual degree. I went to the school. Attended all of classes, but I didn't get the paperworks because of my visa situation.

Saying that was enough to get me fired. They said my behavior was deceptive and I was trying to fool them while my thinking was who even cares about my degree from that random college? Google most certainly hired me for my previous work and my performance in the interviews.

My boss was happy with my work and tried to tell them I can do the job and I am qualified for what this job asks for. My recruiter tried talking to them as well. But for the HR team none of that was enough. It was like they found a criminal.

I asked my recruiter if Google would ever hire me back and she said they marked my profile with a big red flag. I have no chance anymore. They have no tolerance for this sort of mistake which is really bad. I wouldn't mind going through the interview process again.

I got fired and now I'm trying to deal with this. I really loved working at Google. I was so happy that I sent a big bag of Google shirts to my family and told everyone about it.


Now I'm having a lot of mental issues. I can't really sleep and wake up remembering every second of my termination meeting.
I am full of regret and think about my decision all the time. I'm sure Google would have no problem if I said I dropped out of college from beginning. I just made a mistake. It was the worst mistake of my life. It feels like I climbed a mountain and the moment I reached to the pick someone kicked me down.

I defined getting hired at Google as a goal a while back and I achieved it. Now this happened. I'm a super logical/critical person but I can't avoid thinking about this. I can't stop looking back and thinking about it.

How can I help myself?


Thanks