I was recently laid off from my job, and have been collecting unemployment for longer than I'd like. Recently some friends have pressured me to work for local government. Unfortunately all the jobs I have available include a poly graph, as they're related to law enforcement and corrections. About 7 or 8 years ago I applied as a dispatcher, and made it to the polygraph stage.

At the same time another friend of mine was applying to community service style job that also required a poly graph, his was approx. a week before mine. He had failed as he had confessed to something I also had done which was similar, which I won't go into (lets just say it involves being young and stupid on the internet).

At this time the resources on Polygraphs were abysmal, so while I understood it's ultimately a glorified response system, I didn't know how it worked with the examiner. Like my friend, I added what I had done to my questionnaire, and went ahead with my test. Well, I got the "I'm your friend" style examiner, and she suddenly switched when we got to the questions about had I done anything else, especially related to X I'd put on my sheet.

Of course, I've never been in trouble with authority (I don't even have so much a ticket on my record), and this obviously prompted a truck load of fear. An interrogation went on for a while, which felt like forever, before she got another examiner. He wasn't the nice kind and made her bad cop look like the sweetest grandma. He proceeded to badger, interrogate, and intimidate me until I was in tears.

The second they offered conclude the interview, I opted out and left. This has forever been the bane of my existence. I'm an extreme guiltier, that even my own bad thoughts make me feel bad, and when I try not to think about bad things, the worst things pop into my head (like don't think bad thoughts, like X, and suddenly grotesque worst things I can think of are suddenly my thought). 

And now, even after all this time, I can't even think about a polygraph now, without feeling on my own that my physiological responses change. I finally thought it might be worth trying, so I found this site, among others, with much more information about the process that I had at the time.

Still, I doubt I'd pass, the original test was such a shock to me, I don't see myself being able to voluntarily control my responses, and I think I'm out of luck, for the rest of my life regarding work, or anything else involving a polygraph.