I'm a few thousand in debt as well. Not over 10k, but it's a debt and it does hang over me. I do pay my own bills though, and am able to make decent payments. So it doesn't weigh so heavy on me so as to eat away at my determination to maintain those payments. But once you get to the point where you're making the smallest payments as defined by your contract, your interest is often the greatest inhibitor in getting those debts paid off.

I see your point... getting yourself to stay focused on maintaining the lifestyle required to reliably continue to make payments can be really monotonous and tiring, to the point where you are just burnt out on dwelling on your situation. The desire to just give up is there, usually right in front of you. All while this is going on, other elements of your life seem to be plotting your demise.

You have to do things to mitigate this, somehow. I'm always electronics hungry. I'm always taking part in some online activity, or engaged in some form of creativity. I have a killer PC setup, and I might have been out of debt had I not bought all this stuff. But, on the other hand, would I be mentally capable of handling life without a means to be comfortable?

It's not bad to make yourself comfortable. It's healthy to maintain a certain level of comfort and happiness. Therefore, justifying having nice things is reasonable, to a point. Compulsive buying, uneducated financial decisions, and having eyes larger than your wallet are all things I've had to learn (the hard way) how to mitigate. Get comfortable, but not too comfortable.

Mitigate your income. Assuming you don't have a budget, open up an excel spreadsheet and make yourself a little calendar for the year and each day a bill is due, write it in for that day. Write in your paydays, too. Then, in your spreadsheet, make a list of your monthly income and outgoing funds, and make a list of your debt balances. Then, start with the top row with how much money you actually have (balance), then work your way down each row with each income/outgoing event, adjusting your balance as you go, noting the description and a date. Before I had a balance, this hung over my head bigtime. Now that I can see what all I owe and how my cash flow works, I can finally see light at the end of a tunnel (and it's not a train) and my worries were drastically reduced.

It might be a bit intimidating to see the total of all your debts, but it's the enlightenment you want. That final debt number should be encouraging you to get out of debt as fast as you possibly can, and that number will stay with you when deciding to go out and buy more things. It'll cause you to think about your money more carefully, and will play a part as you go through your justifications for wanting something nice. The compulsive buying will be reduced, and your financial decisions will be greatly more educated.

Your passions in what you want to do with your free time and, ultimately, what you want to do in life are also important. But it's also wise to recognize that you can spend too much time doing that as well.

There's nothing delusional about "what you want". You just need to mitigate and educate yourself in getting there. Quitting your job might have been a good call for you, especially since you got another job already. Keep that momentum going.

You'll be alright.