How I Removed 10 Derogatory Accounts From My Credit Report in 2025

What Cleaning My Credit Report Taught Me About Resilience, Faith, and Financial Freedom

How I Removed 10 Derogatory Accounts in 2025, a year that stripped me down financially, emotionally, and spiritually, I learned that credit is not merely a number but a language, a gatekeeper, and for many of us, the difference between being stuck and being free. 2025 taught me that resilience isn’t about enduring hardship quietly, it’s about learning the system that once worked against you and using it to rebuild with precision, faith, and courage. Cleaning my credit didn’t just restore my score; it restored my confidence, my options, and my belief that nothing broken is beyond repair when knowledge meets obedience and action.

2025 didn’t arrive with confetti. It came with collection letters, silent phones, and that familiar gut-drop when you refresh your credit report knowing it might ruin your day. Again. But here’s the plot twist no one tells you about survival seasons, they don’t just test you. They train you.

This year taught me that credit is not just a number. It’s access. It’s oxygen in a system designed to reward those who understand the rules and punish those who don’t. And resilience? Resilience isn’t motivational quotes or soft landings. It’s choosing to learn the system when it would be easier to collapse under it.

I didn’t wake up in 2025 financially free. I woke up financially fed up.

And that changed everything.

Credit Is the Language of This Economy, Like It or Not

You can be smart, faithful, and hardworking, and still get locked out of opportunity because of your credit profile. Housing. Transportation. Business funding. Even peace of mind. Credit is the quiet gatekeeper standing between effort and ease.

For a long time, I spiritualized what was actually a systems problem. I prayed, but I didn’t know the rules. I hoped, but I didn’t understand consumer law. I waited, but the bureaus kept reporting inaccuracies like clockwork.

So I stopped asking, “Why is this happening to me?”And started asking, “How does this actually work?”

That question led me down a rabbit hole of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Metro 2 compliance, reinvestigation timelines, misclassification of disputes, and the ugly truth that many derogatory accounts stay on reports simply because consumers don’t challenge them correctly.

Once I understood that, the fear broke.

Removing 10 Derogatory Accounts Changed More Than My Score

By the end of 2025, I successfully removed 10 derogatory accounts from my credit report, including over $14,000 in rental and eviction-related accounts. Not by luck. Not by begging. Not by paying shady “credit repair” companies thousands of dollars.

I did it by learning how to dispute accurately, legally, and relentlessly.

Each deletion felt like oxygen returning to my body. Each update reminded me that the system only feels permanent until you challenge it with precision.

Here’s the part people don’t talk about. Cleaning your credit rewires your nervous system.

You sleep differently. You plan differently. You stop bracing for rejection.

And with every account that fell off my report, I felt something holy click into place, because I remembered a promise I made to God in the middle of my lowest season.

The Promise That Changed My Purpose

I was staring at yet another credit report and wondering how someone who was trying so hard could still feel so stuck. I remember saying a simple prayer, not the polished kind, just the honest kind: If You show me how to fix this, I won’t keep it to myself. I wasn’t asking for a miracle. I was asking for understanding, for a way forward that didn’t involve shame, confusion, or starting over from zero again. And what unfolded wasn’t instant relief, but clarity.

Step by step, I learned how credit actually works, how to question what didn’t feel right, and how to respond instead of react. That’s when it clicked. The hardest part isn’t fixing your credit, it’s not knowing where to start or what to say. This is why I created The Repair Your Credit With ChatGPT ebook. Not as a shortcut, not as a promise of overnight success, but as a steady hand for anyone standing exactly where I once stood—overwhelmed, capable, and ready to do things the right way, if only someone would show them how.

Why ChatGPT Became My Secret Weapon

Here’s what most people get wrong about disputing credit: they write emotionally, not legally. They overshare. They threaten prematurely. They copy generic templates that scream “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Using ChatGPT the right way changed that.

With the prompts inside The Repair Your Credit With ChatGPT, I learned how to:

• Draft disputes that cite the correct FCRA sections

• Force proper reinvestigations instead of automated rubber stamps

• Identify re-aging, balance inaccuracies, and unverifiable reporting

• Escalate without panicking or sabotaging leverage

This is why the ebook works, it doesn’t just tell you what to dispute. It shows you how to think like someone who understands consumer law.

And yes, I’m proud of that.

Three Credit Truths That Made Everything Easier

Once I stopped trying to fix everything at once, something surprising happened, I felt calmer, and my results got better. I used to think progress meant doing more, faster. In reality, progress came when I slowed down and got intentional. Credit responds to clarity, not chaos. I learned to focus on one or two things at a time, to understand exactly what was wrong before trying to correct it, and to keep simple records so I wasn’t relying on memory or emotion. None of this was flashy, but it worked. And if you’re feeling overwhelmed right now, that’s the first relief I want to offer you: you don’t have to do this perfectly. That shift—from frantic to focused—was the difference between spinning my wheels and finally moving forward.

What 2026 Looks Like When You’re No Longer Bracing for Impact

For the first time in a long time, I’m planning from a place of steadiness instead of survival. When your credit starts to clean up, your mind follows. You stop flinching every time your phone rings. You start imagining options instead of worst-case scenarios. 2026 doesn’t feel like a year I have to “get through,” it feels like a year I get to build. Better housing terms. More flexibility. Business ideas that don’t die at the application stage. Clean credit doesn’t mean life is perfect, but it does mean life is lighter. And that lightness creates space for better decisions, longer vision, and quieter confidence.

Why I’m Walking This Path With You

If you’re reading this because 2025 knocked the wind out of you, I want you to know something, nothing has gone wrong with you. Most people were never taught how credit works, only how to feel ashamed when it doesn’t. I’m inviting you into this process not because I have it all figured out, but because I’ve walked it—confused, determined, learning as I went. The reason I point you to The Repair Your Credit With ChatGPT ebook is simple: it removes the guesswork. It gives you the language, the structure, and the starting point I desperately needed when I was staring at my own report, wondering where to begin.

You don’t need motivation.

You need a map.

This is that map.

This Was Never Just About Credit

Looking back, I can see that credit was the surface issue, but what was really at stake was agency. Confidence. The belief that I wasn’t at the mercy of a system I didn’t understand. Learning how to clean my credit taught me how to advocate for myself, how to slow down and respond rather than panic, and how to trust that clarity changes outcomes. That’s why I share this work so openly.

Because when you learn how to fix one part of your life that felt out of reach, it quietly reminds you that other things might be fixable too. This is bigger than a score. It’s about reclaiming your footing and realizing you were never as powerless as you were led to believe.

🧡 Sula