It's hard to pick through all these pieces to find the advice you really need. You mention scraping up courage and indecision about a degree, but linked a profile describing "decisive and imaginative" and "radiating self-confidence." Your description of the job as "impressive" is confusing. This job doesn't even pay for many Mustachian retirements (with no housing bill). The CEO of EverythingAwesomeCorp™ may do really cool things, but he does not have a cool job if he's paid $1 to do it. You mention not wanting emotional stress, but you work (I'm guessing) well over 40 hours with titles that seem to include interfacing with... well, everyone, and you would make more if you translated the time into any minimum-wage job. You included having a "polyglot polymath mind," which explains linguistics, which you're right, is a job hole, but what about polymath? You could do anything in STEM.
I know a bit about education, and I'm guessing part of the allure of the towers for you are their resemblance to a meritocracy. What you do has value, people recognize it, you do it well, your grades reflect a job well done, everyone wins. That's not enough to not also go broke.
If I'm on the right track, it's time for you to have an honest conversation with yourself about your income. Not just your current income - your willingness to get an income. Schmoozing is absolutely necessary, and you may hate to hear that, but it's absolutely necessary. You should come to peace with that, not by being disingenuous, but by acknowledging that business relationships and outreach may not be awful things. They show that you value a contact's contribution to your shared prosperity - they're not subversive and manipulative unless you don't really value that contribution. This is a conversation I had with myself around age 24 or 25. "There's a game here where the ante is propriety and face, and the rewards are shared prosperity, and I was invited to play, and I'm going to."
Determine whether you need to love your job to be happy, or if you can be happy with what your job allows you to do when you're not working. This isn't an ethical decision, so don't make it one. It's what will be healthiest for you and make the most use of your talents.
IF YOU DO NOT NEED TO LOVE YOUR JOB:
If you have demonstrable skills that you can take a job as a junior (whatever) for less pay than someone with the BA/MA for the job, you may be able to get one, but would probably start close to your pay ceiling. You could then get experience, pay rent, and go to school to be eligible for promotions there.
Alternatively, you could go back to school first, but ONLY IF YOU HAVE A CLEAR OBJECTIVE. Your questions are "how many openings in this field are there, is it expected to grow or shrink, can I enjoy doing this once it's also a job, is the pay enough to justify the debt, can I minimize the debt with internships/scholarships/low-income aid?" Get a job at Starbucks and you could get a free, quick degree in a field you already use your skills in and overcome the "I don't have a pedigree" doubts/obstacles.
IF YOU NEED TO LOVE YOUR JOB:
You need to determine how your talents are lucrative and apply yourself to understanding what fields, where, in what specific ways. A degree could help, but not in all cases. A linguistic degree is completely useless without an objective - in fact, any degree is completely useless without an objective. It's like a prestigious ID card that unlocks doors - it's completely nuts to spend 40k plus for one of these shiny things if you have no door in mind to swipe it on. Gone are the days when a university education was good for its own sake - I won't pay 40k-100k for vitamins just because they're good for their own sake.
As for language and writing, writers can write whenever they want. I'm writing right now. Most value society gets out of the written word anymore has no barrier to entry - all a degree does is force you to practice. Your questions are "how many openings in this field are there, is it expected to grow or shrink, can I enjoy doing this once it's also a job, is the pay enough to justify the debt, can I minimize the debt with internships/scholarships/low-income aid, and do I love this job?"
Architectural drafting, blueprinting, or engineering for a company like yours for $$$$$
Chemical engineering especially
Computer Science (from programming to systems administration or server administration) for 35-75k+
Quality control (in manufacturing, many of these jobs are boring and technical to most people and don't require a degree, paying something like 30-40k)
Teaching in China for 30k with just a BA in English (or translating Mandarin for businesses - really, if you want language, leaving the US offers plenty of jobs in English and translation)
If you need to love your job without a degree, consider tech certificates, manufacturing, or lighter degrees or certs in recession-proof fields like for medical techs/phlebotomy.
Your specific questions:
1) Role models....
Get a job that actually pays the bills, then satisfy your itch with an internship. You don't need to be in school to ask for one. Or interview. It can be stressful but it's not that hard to ask relative strangers if they could spare a minute for a quick interview about their jobs. Tell them you're going back to school and you want to make sure you go into (whatever) with an open mind and a clear sense of what it entails. Maybe not quick and easy for an introvert, but helpful.
2) Have home...
Forgive yourself. Stop boxing yourself into the area you're in in Texas. Your job is not remotely worth staying in your location for. It's surely not worth going homeless for. You really have to look at your objectives (like "don't become homeless"), look at your job, and ask if it fits that criteria. If it doesn't, it's not working for you. Move on. You're not "underpaid." You're not "fabulously underpaid." You're on a debt train to homeless town and you're not jumping off - it's time. Right now right now.
3) Should I go for a Bachelor's? I have a pretty high aptitude for a lot of things...
Don't do this at all ever under any circumstances if you're just kicking the can down the road. Aptitude is great, but you have to pick a specific thing, as in field, but even better, specific job(s), like 3 or 4, in that field. Then pursue them. Relentlessly. You're paying too much to have vague aims and a general sense you may get some job somewhere. Focus and drive help reveal even things you would not have thought of while you're searching. The only exception is ONE year of general at a university with the feverish aim of discovering ASAP what your specific field will be.
TL;DR:
1) Stop dedicating your future homeless self to a terrible-paying job unless you have a clear sense of how to use the experience there on a resume to get to the next job
2) Fix your immediate situation by getting a part-time job and immediately listing your income as your annual combined from both jobs.
3) Leave the area if there is literally no one who needs a roommate and you can't afford the housing (your job isn't tying you down!)
4) Forgive yourself for not having the job you need, get the job you need, then look for the job you want
5) Only go to school if you have a clear plan of what you're going to do there, how it will work out for you ultimately, and then get a job anyway, because you can't dorm 100% of the year