I had an exsisting account for 6 yrs or more and now its gone, what happened to it I changed my pword and?

i recieved and email from a friend stating that ther was a hacker on yahoo and she insisted that i changed my pword, i changed the pword and the next day I was told that I was temporaily unable to sign in, also when i tried siging in it said wrong pwordo or screen name.. im so cluless, this is a mess, everything is on that account my groups, emailaddress.. emails everything, my pictures...My life foreal.. yes i am a tru yahoo junkie... i had to create a whole new account and start over from scratch.. from 6 whole yrs. ago...thats not fun nor fair.... someOne plese tell me what i could be experiencing...