Overcoming shame after quitting a job

Imagine this. There was a guy next to you in orientation who was feeling the same panic attacks. He wasn't cut out for that job, and he knew it. But he stayed anyway, he didn't listen to his body trying to tell him to get out. In order to manage that feeling he's had to shut down his inner life all over the place and now he's a stranger to himself. He's in a relationship that isn't right for him but he won't let himself know it. He doesn't know how to find joy in his hobbies. He can't even hear himself because the first thing he's going to hear is that he should have run out of orientation like you did, and he should have run out every day ever since. Obviously, he can't do that, because that wouldn't be responsible. So he's learned to label his own inner voice as being something irresponsible and therefore to be ignored. That's why he's a stranger to himself. But he's also miserable, because he's a stranger to himself and because he's working at a job that isn't for him. And one day he's going to snap. He's going to just drop all of his responsibilities at work, he's going to cheat on his wife and leave his kids and buy a red sports car and leave personal and professional chaos in his wake, because the dam broke and all of his inner voices flooded him at once and he didn't know how to listen to any of them. Because he doesn't know who he is, hasn't known who he is since he was a child. He wants to know who he is again, so he starts acting like a child. You dodged a bullet. You really really did. Your moment of anxious panic was your moment of clarity into the future. Your dam broke early. Now you have the rest of your life to listen to yourself and to do the things that you are good at and will make you happy. Don't feel bad about this. Nobody else does. In the past year, literally nobody in the world has thought about how you ran out of the orientation, except for you. Hell, I know a guy who called in sick to his job in Michigan, from Atlanta Georgia, where he was unexpectedly partying with some friends. They fired him. A few years later, they hired him back and now he's managing a pretty big department at the same company. It's fine. It's not nearly as big a deal as you think it is.

A year and a half later, I am still filled with a sense of shame about quitting that position. You have literally spent 10x more time worrying about this job than you actually spent on the job itself. Aside from the fact that, as others have mentioned, this is something you can easily leave off your resume for the rest of your life, I think maybe it might be a good idea to explore this in some kind of therapy, because this seems like an awfully extreme response to something very normal and unremarkable.

You don't have to list a job that you were only at for six weeks. People leave mistake jobs off their resume all of the time. In terms of closure, you aren't the first or the last to make a mistake in how you handled a situation, particularly on the front-end of a career. The best thing you can do for yourself is learn from it and take those lessons to your next career.

Try to reframe this for yourself: you made a clear, quick decision which spared you the unhappiness of working at a career you disliked, in a place you hated. Never underestimate how soul-crushing that can be. Take credit for knowing yourself, and for taking decisive action.

six weeks into orientation You don't need to mention this job on your resume, in cover letters, during interviews, or, really, ever. Not that many people would be shocked to hear that someone started a job, found it wasn't a good fit, and quit after 6 weeks--you'd get some raised eyebrows with regard to quitting without notice, but other than that, it's perfectly common to have a false start once or twice, or even a few times, in your career. Putting it on your resume or employment history form isn't a "huge blemish" but rather a "thing that takes up a few lines and doesn't add value." Leave it off, but not because it's something to be ashamed of. What can I do to give myself a sense of closure and feel optimistic about my career prospects once again? Realize that the only person who cares about this choice is you: you get to decide how it gets remembered, learned from, and left behind. The organization you left? They don't care about it. Seriously. If you tried to get a job there again, the worst they'd do would be to dig up your file, read about your brief time there, and turn you down for rehire based on company policy. Prospective employers? They don't know about it, so they don't care about it. You'd have to go out of your way to tell them about it in order to make them care enough to base hiring decisions on it. You get to decide: am I going to remember this as a rash decision I made when I was 21 or as the worst thing I have ever done in my life? It's ok to feel embarrassed about it, to wish you'd made a different choice, but eventually you need to let it be a thing you did once rather than the thing that defines your worthiness as an employee. Figure out where your dreams, skills, and interests intersect, and let that guide you to a renewed sense of optimism about your career prospects. You have something to offer employers: what is it? (And don't say, "A huge mistake I made when I was 21." That's not it.)

#1: No, of course not! I know so many people who have done much, much, much worse things. #2: See a doctor/therapist for diagnosis for depression. Depression is less "I am sad." than "I feel overwhelming guilt, shame, that I've failed at life and will never recover." which you seemed to say. Not being able to let go of this is pretty classic depression. Also, don't mention that job on your resume/employment history if you don't want to. Story time to make you feel better: I have a great friend who was in a terrible relationship and who quit his job here (without notice) to take a job at the place she lived. But she was lying about everything and dumped him 1 day before he moved, so he had to get his old job back (they accepted him) and not show up for the new job. If he can recover from that... your thing is nothin'. This happened not very long ago.

Honesty, you're probably in a better mental state then you would be if you'd stayed at a job it was clear to you right away that you hated. Try and keep that in mind and reframe what you think of as a huge mistake/blemish as a good thing in the long-run. Also, yeah, you don't need to list that on your resume.

won't HR see this employer on my record when they do my background/Social Security check? No. Seriously, it is the norm not to include jobs you've had for only a few weeks on your resume. Don't overthink this.

You may not realize it now, but jumping ship quickly when you have made a bad career move is actually a good thing in many cases. The other option is to be stuck for years in an environment you hate - which can be bad for your career because you end up underperforming and not impressing anyone for future references. Better to bail after 6 weeks than to be known as the underperformer! Your only mistake was to quit out of panic instead of deliberately - but I think you can cut yourself some slack for that one.