Don't think of it as a painful process. Mistakes happen. All you can do is learn from your past self and move forward. Celebrate the victories of paying off accounts and getting things removed from your credit.
I had originally written a giant post but website error and had to restart haha. But I know what you mean. I had a total of 12 charge offs. Credit cards, student loans etc. These happened from 2012-2016. I got a little luck on a few of them coming off the credit reports and even got a charge off cancelled to where I am no longer liable for the debt. But seeing those accounts go from ridiculous to nothing has been amazing. I had a total of $54k in charged off debt. I drove for lyft for a while, I improved my skill set to get promotions at work, I did everything I could to make more money so I could end the paycheck to paycheck struggle. It get's better without a doubt. Eventually you start to get a weird sense of satisfaction for everything you fix or improve. Don't give up. Not worth it in the end, I went 5 years with horribly damaged credit and scores in the upper 400s low 500s. Not being able to get approved for a stick of gum sucks! It also helps build up the skillset in managing the debt so later on you don't fall into the same trap. All of my cards are sitting at a $0 balance on almost any given day now and I have money in a savings account(this is a new one for me). Learning the mindset and skills to manage all this stuff has all my bills paid out 2 months in advance.
Your post motivates me to think of my current financial situation as a wake-up call--a reason (if you will) to practice good financial habits. 
On the bright side, I have settled 1 of my 9 accounts. And I am in the process of settling another one, so I guess that's a win! Unfortunately, I am in the process of settling another account through a litigation agency because I am being sued by the creditor. (Yikes! Lol.)
You live and learn.
Thanks so much for your sharing a snippet of your re-building story--it's definitely food for thought.
@Anonymous wrote:
I can't get a medical collection off despite having proof of coverage for my child.
Have you tried using the HIPAA process? If not, google "HIPAA process credit confusion" and you'll see the site with instructions for how to do this.
HIPAA is the medical privacy law that makes it so that health care providers should not be furnishing certain details about the care to the CRAs. This makes it easier to dispute the account directly with the CRAs without them being able to confirm it.
1) I remind myself that I'm in this for the long game. This isn't going to happen overnight. With 120-day lates reporting on federal student loans in 2015, there is literally nothing I can do to get out of the 'major derogatory' credit scoring bucket until those drop off in 2022. This is a matter of law (Higher Education Act) and no amount of goodwill letters will change that. I've just accepted that there are things that I cannot change as a result of my poor choices and I can choose to redirect my time and efforts to other things where I can actually effectuate change.
2) I focus on improving my overall financial health rather than just improving my credit scores. Sometimes improving one's overall financial situation does absolutely nothing for a credit score (e.g. creating an emergency fund or paying off a higher APR card rather than a higher utilization % card). Creating a robust emergency fund and a budget that I actually follow will hopefully prevent my ox from ever ending up in the mire again.
