At some stage, you have selected the text area(s) and pressed Ctrl+1. This converts text to shapes, grouped twice
I thought it would be something like that [well I would say that wouldn't I ]

Ctrl+1 being the shortcut for add one of the combine functions I mentioned earlier

not a full analysis, just a number of guesses where i too have made similar mistakes
we all have started projects that just grew a life of their own no matter how carefully we planned them out...