A Sisyphean Challenge

Have you ever gotten that feeling that you're in an uphill battle with no solution?  I figured that the extra financial muscle I've earned in my recent career move would be a good thing for my credit.  Have old debts?  Pay them off and your credit rating improves, right?  Wrong.  Pay and the vultures swoop in.  I just paid off three old delinquent accounts on my credit, only to have them replaced by three more older ones dredged up again by these junk-debt scavenger companies that call themselves collection agencies.  My credit score fell by 50 points in the last month alone because of this crap.  How is that fair??  The only thing I can take comfort in is knowing that there really is an end, it's just a matter of being disciplined enough to keep paying off what I owe to get to that point.