I lost some, but I gained more.

Two posts in one night, is it Christmas?! Well, kind of. I decided I wanted to post a follow-up to my "coming clean" post on December 7th.

I was right. I said in it that I would lose people, and I was right. The very next day, someone I considered to be my best friend posted some very rude things on Facebook about me, closing with "everyone has problems, I guess yours are just more important."

That wasn't the goal. The goal here is to destigmatize mental illness by talking about it. It's not that mine is more important than anyone else's, it's that I decided to open up in the hopes that it would help others open up.

So I erased her from my life. And I erased everyone associated with her, because I don't have to have friends who are going to sit there and listen while she talks bad about me. I faced some serious backlash. Angry messages, people blaming me for my friendship with her ending. I ignored it all. I know I made the right choice.

I lost six people that I considered close friends, even more that I liked. Do you want to know what I gained?

BETTER friendships. Less than a week after posting that, I had a lovely brunch with a friend that I rarely get to see but love dearly.

And then there's my best friend. My sister. We've battled everything together. Our parents got divorced around the same time, we got a surprise sibling within six months of each other. We also battled mental illness together. We're still battling it together. We both know that, though we live in different states, we can call each other when things get bad and the other will drop everything. In April, she was having a hard time and was really depressed (she also had a cute parasite living in her, and now he;s my cute nephew). I walked in my mom's room at midnight on Monday and said I didn't care what it took, I needed to be there. Friday at midnight, I knocked on her door.

My last post was about holiday anxiety and my son's food allergy. I followed that up with a petition. In a break from cleaning, I checked Facebook and saw that she shared it. And I started crying.

My old friends hadn't even known about bubba's food allergy. Forget about caring. But not my sister. She wrote that it was important because her nephew has a life-threatening food allergy. She doesn't live it every day, but she cares enough to help me change it. Knowing that you have someone, even one person, who cares is a beautiful thing.

So yeah, I lost friends. I lost a lot of friends. But the friendships that I do have are stronger because I opened up to the people I love. The people who love you will stay. The people who won't don't belong in your life. As with all things, quality is more important than quantity. I'd rather have the few wonderful friends that I do, than have lots of people who don't care.

Every single day... "I get by with a little help from my friends."

<3