Advice needed please,

Paulapips

Hey everyone advice needed,
Long story short I hope anyways,
Brought a house in 2005 on interest only, first house for both of us and didn’t realise the cost of one, anyways I was a stay at home mum and hubby was for ten years working for his dad as a butcher, for ten years his wages never went up, of course all bills went up as did our mortgage, from the set we were using credit cards for the odd thing, and xmas etc, but after 15 years of all sorts going wrong, boiler, washing machines, beds breaking, fence fixing you know the usual, we’ve ended up £78,000 with two loans the rest cc debt, hubby got a different job five years ago but has nearly killed himself working 80 hours a week trying to get our minimum payments of £1,700 a month! It has really taken its toll this past year, I’ve suffered badly with mental health for years, early on I was an acrophobic and didn’t leave the house for nearly two years, in those two years I replied on online shopping for everything.
Now my mental health is getting better but the strain on all this debt has me having panic attacks and severe depression. Doesn’t help that my dear father passed away in October. Been a rough year all round I think.
We tried selling our house as it has around £35,000 equity for two years but nothing is selling around here, no one will remortgage us either for obvious reasons. All came to a head around November time as we were buying food and fiel on credit cards, another two things broke (bed and washing machine) in November which of course we had to use credit cards again to stay above water.
Anyway enough is enough, we contacted StepChange who reckon it’ll take around 14 years to pay it all off under a dmp.
They are eager to start it,
A few questions as I’ve been scouring the forum like a loon,
Can I post phone StepChange for around six months so we can get an emergency fund in place or will they wash their hands of us for messing them around?
Now regarding defaults, I want that done ASAP as a couple of creditors said that interest won’t stop whilst in a dmp,
Do I tell the creditors I’m going to wait six months before starting a dmp.?
Do I literally ignore all letters until defaulted?
Say if one defaults in three months but the others take longer to default (11 creditors in total) do I start paying token payments to the ones that defaulted until they all have?
Sorry if these seem like stupid questions but I’ve literally no clue.
I’ve contacted them all asking for breathing space but that stops in ten days. Although Paypal credit have ignored the breathing space and continually ring me and keep adding charges. Which I suppose I should get used to.
Can I ask my creditors to only contact me via email or post? My mental state would suffer more if I had continuous phone calls.
Also I’m super worried about someone coming to the door demanding money. Think that would send me over the edge to be honest all our debts are credit cards and two loans, but really worried about someone coming to the door. I’m not sleeping. I need advice. Please help a gal out x anyways thanks in advance for your time if you made it this far we’ll done as I tend to ramble on x

motivated

Hi Paula

I would post this on the DFW thread. They are amazing over there and helped me with my millions of questions when I was just starting out. There will be no judgements just good honest supportive advice

Good luck

motivated

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5897083/dmp-mutual-support-thread-part-13

This will take you straight there
M