As others have written: I've been there, I survived, I learned a lot.
Carefully look at the debts and your resources and prioritize. (Secured debts and bills on active accounts (like current utilities that could get shut off) have to be paid first.) Then do what you can to whittle away the debt. Read up on debt collection tactics and law so you can tell who can really hurt you and who is just bluffing.
Then just hang on for a long ride. Eventually you will have deals with all the creditors and hopefully no new surprises will show up. [The possibility of new surprises showing up was a lingering fear for me - one extra unknown "debt" showed up almost a year later, but fortunately I was able to convince them that I was no longer guaranteeing the account when the charges were made. Which was true.]
As a backup, I had looked into bankruptcy options and positioned myself to protect myself (as much as is possible) while going through it.
IMPORTANT: set up an extra bank account at a different bank and use it to pay debts. You do not want the creditors to know where your money is. When you are negotiating a deal and/or a payment plan and then following it, you do not want them to be able to see if you have more money (even though it is not legal, it is still easy to find out how much money someone has in their bank account.)
If the creditors have already been paid from your current accounts, then open new accounts at a new bank for your personal use and use the old one for debt paying.
Only load the debt paying account with what is needed.
[Important - make sure the account does not have ANY overdraft protection - any overdraft should be rejected. Many creditors will accelerate the payments (and claim you agreed to it) to try to grab more before other creditors get it - this happened to a friend of mine; they agreed to a series of payments and the creditor simply submitted the whole batch each month to see how many would clear.]
When negotiating, make your starting "debt" for negotiation the actual amount owed. The creditors will use an inflated amount (including a LOT of interest and penalties) as the starting point so you will have to get 25 to 50% reduction just to get the the original debt amount.
Carefully look at the debts and your resources and prioritize. (Secured debts and bills on active accounts (like current utilities that could get shut off) have to be paid first.) Then do what you can to whittle away the debt. Read up on debt collection tactics and law so you can tell who can really hurt you and who is just bluffing.
Then just hang on for a long ride. Eventually you will have deals with all the creditors and hopefully no new surprises will show up. [The possibility of new surprises showing up was a lingering fear for me - one extra unknown "debt" showed up almost a year later, but fortunately I was able to convince them that I was no longer guaranteeing the account when the charges were made. Which was true.]
As a backup, I had looked into bankruptcy options and positioned myself to protect myself (as much as is possible) while going through it.
IMPORTANT: set up an extra bank account at a different bank and use it to pay debts. You do not want the creditors to know where your money is. When you are negotiating a deal and/or a payment plan and then following it, you do not want them to be able to see if you have more money (even though it is not legal, it is still easy to find out how much money someone has in their bank account.) If the creditors have already been paid from your current accounts, then open new accounts at a new bank for your personal use and use the old one for debt paying. Only load the debt paying account with what is needed.
[Important - make sure the account does not have ANY overdraft protection - any overdraft should be rejected. Many creditors will accelerate the payments (and claim you agreed to it) to try to grab more before other creditors get it - this happened to a friend of mine; they agreed to a series of payments and the creditor simply submitted the whole batch each month to see how many would clear.]
When negotiating, make your starting "debt" for negotiation the actual amount owed. The creditors will use an inflated amount (including a LOT of interest and penalties) as the starting point so you will have to get 25 to 50% reduction just to get the the original debt amount.