Many people suffer similar "learning experiences" while they are going through the process of getting rated. Chess.com has long attempted to let new players start off at lower levels, but few people are able to realize that their experiences playing against their own friends are not really very relevant- so as you say they choose the wrong starting level, the way you did, and suffer a string of defeats until they find the right level.
Fortunately, Chess.com's rating system does recognize new or long inactive players (It's called the Glicko System) and adjusts their ratings pretty quickly-- even if they have won a few games against their friends.
It sounds like you have made it through the gauntlet.
When I first made an account on chess.com I ended up with 1200 Elo. This usually wouldn't be a problem but my first matches were with friends (the reason I got the account in the first place) (also, the default is to have it rated, which we didn't pay attention to at the time). When I played with them my Elo skyrocketed while theirs went down, this is expected for new players to quickly set them to a destined Elo, which the difference was large enough to give me no more Elo from winning against said friend. A bit later I played another friend, this gave me even more Elo and even if it was less due to my already boosted Elo, but still a lot compared to a regular match.
I then didn't play for months, and when I came back I decided to try chess again, this is when the high Elo became a problem, in one day I lost 7 straight games. I was good (compared to people I played) at chess from just playing with other people, but I had 0 knowledge of the game and I just guessed and tried to attack the f7/c2 pawn because that was the only strategy I had.
I then tried again a few days later and lost another 6 straight games but won one and lost another 3. The next play session I won 2 and lost 6. The next one I won 3/8, and then 3/8 again. The next day I decided to learn how to be better at chess (10 days ago) and I think its a mistake to let new players have rated matches in friend games (obviously allowing non rated), at least until you aren't in the positioning phase because I had to play ~ 26 games with a brutal loss ratio before I was able to play that Elo (without the opponent being completely bad, which I didn't like to play against because it felt bad to win from someone being completely blind).
I know I saw something about giving the option to choose your rank, but honestly "new to chess"(600) and "beginner"(800) just sound bad so I don't doubt many people just choose "intermediate"(1200) because of that. I already took all the L's to be at my current Elo and I'm trying to be less terrible now but it wasn't very fun to lose all self esteem in chess with an immediate loss streak of 13 with many more to come.