Had like 8k personal loan+CC go to collections

It went to collections like probably 6 years ago now, I've been too nervous too lol into it to find out how bad my situation is..

I've been out of documented work that whole time and was told by a state tax board(or something like that, idrk) employee I know advised I don't even bother paying collections years ago, so I've been clinging to that little bit of hope that somehow it just gets lost to time somehow....

What should I do at this point? Like first steps to general idea of how you handle this kind of situation if you could

Thanks 🙏