[pennsylvania] Defaulting On Multiple Credit Cards With Very Large Balances - Worst Possible Outcome?

Location: Pennsylvania. First, I am definitely at fault here. I am addicted to credit. I applied for credit cards, used a falsely high but believable income for my ZIP code, was doing fine paying on them, but was laid off in April 2025. I got another job in June 2025, but it pays around half of what I used to make and I have been unable to get a full-time job anywhere despite having a Master's in IT since April 2025 and a BA in mathematics since July 2023. I owe over 8K to Discover (who was just bought out by Capital One, another bank I have maxed out cards totalling around $1500), $3600 to Avant, and several other cards along with 2 Affirm loans. The 2 cards with the highest balances I can no longer afford to pay even the minimum payments (Discover: $240/month, Avant: $110/month) on alongside the other cards and my regular expenses. What happened is when I got laid off, I started putting all expenses I could not pay outright on the cards, slowly raising the balances since 2023. The APRs are in the mid-20s to around 30% APR.

This is now the 3rd time in my life (2006 - 2009, 2015 - 2019, 2022 - 2026) that I over-extended myself, with the previous being as recently as mid-2019 when I had to default on 10 cards when my hours were cut in half that September. I never filed for bankruptcy and I doubt for someone like me, filing will do anything productive as I am very likely to fall into this trap again. I may never be able to handle credit cards responsibly for the rest of my life. I was not sued that time, but I had low balances across a lot of cards (the highest was around $2500 and lowest $500). This time I have fewer cards but much higher balances (highest is $8100, lowest $550).

For someone with no assets to their name, what is the absolute worst possible thing that could happen to me, legally, when these payments are not made and I don't find a high enough paying job ASAP? What happens when Capital One eventually discovers (no pun intended!) that I am a repeat debtor long-term (I defaulted on 3 of their cards in 2019, and amazingly they actually approved me for a new one in 2023!)? Let's say they sue me for the full debt (around $10500 owed to them right now but that APR is ticking away of course). I show up to court with no ability to pay anything. What happens next? What happens if I'm made to enter some kind of payment arrangement and I fail to pay that?

My total consumer debt is around $17,000 all at very high subprime APRs and my income is a paltry $11,000/year right now. I also owe over $114K in federal student loans with some of those around 7% APR and am on one of those income payment plans, so I never was obligated to make any payments (yet).