Happened to a buddy of mine, took out a bunch of loans during covid, and stopped paying rent. he didn’t travel but he lived large, pretty much spent it all on prostitutes and what not, then when the money ran out he couldn’t pull the trigger.
With a little help he got instituted for a few days and then got some government funded counselling (not in the states obviously)
He couch surfed for a bit, luckily we have a tight friend group
He landed back on his feet, still on the hook for all of it and the government started garnishing his wages, But he found a good stable girl who takes care of him and he’s happier than I’ve ever seen him, he works, he takes care of himself. I’m proud of him. He’s come a long way.
He did go down that path but he wasn’t fully out of depression by then, as part of it he needed to make some monthly payments to the lawyer as I recall, and because he was still on the fence of offing himself he didn’t keep up with it, and once it’s filed and not followed up with, it’s harder for it to get approved in the future, so he kind of fucked himself.
Also half of the loans were government Covid aid that he applied for even though he wasn’t eligible, he applied to everything and they sent him a lot of money because at that point in the pandemic the government was writing blank cheques that they would just follow up with and scrutinize later.
All of that government money is not eligible to be taken care of through bankruptcy, so he would still owe half of the debt regardless.