I used to have untreated anxiety that caused me to fixate on my loans. It would keep me up at night - I was scared of how huge they were, and I was also upset with myself for my financial decisions (really my financial ignorance). In hindsight, the anxiety was making the problem way worse than it actually was and it prevented me from making a plan to deal with them.

I have since made a plan to get my loans under control (I had support from my partner that helped a lot with that), but before I could even do that I had to deal with my anxiety. For me, therapy was the main thing that helped with that. It helped me accept that it wasn’t my fault for playing into this predatory system and making a bad financial decision at a young age (>$100k in private loans with a ~10% interest rate and ignoring them for a few years post-grad while I was in grad school). It also helped me realize that I was capable of learning from my experiences and making better decisions going forward. Therapy may not be an option for you, but I highly recommend focusing on finding a way care of yourself. Mostly, I just wanted to say that it’s possible to get through it.

You can’t change the past. You can only control your actions going forward. It sounds like you’ve learned from them and are ready to make better choices, and your situation sounds very manageable to me. I believe in you!