Friday is my second favourite F word.

So I've been struggling this week. I've been finding it just about impossible to get out of bed, and no matter how much sleep I get, I wake up exhausted and disoriented. Walking around like a doped up zombie may amuse my colleagues but frankly, I'm over it.

My ears also haven't been feeling good - like someone has a blunt pencil and is poking them repeatedly, not exactly a sharp pain but not the most pleasant experience, nonetheless [INSERT FIRST FAVOURITE F WORD HERE]

So off to the doc's yesterday to find out I have fluid pressing against the inside of my ears - oh joy! [INSERT FIRST FAVOURITE F WORD HERE] Better than an ear infection, I guess, but still...

So nasal drops and antibiotics and hopefully I'll start to feel like a human being in a day or two. Otherwise...well they'd shoot a horse for less, so perhaps it's off to the back paddock for me...

Anyway so I've been dragging my sorry butt around during a week of amazing sunshine and back to nearly-summer days. This may well be contributing to my desire to be sitting in a deckchair beside a sparkling expanse of water somewhere instead of at work/home/anywhere except in a deckchair beside a sparkling expanse of water.

Hopefully this weather will continue through the weekend and you better believe I'll be finding a sparkling expanse of water to lounge beside. Bank on it.

So now onto my second favourite F word - FRIDAY!!!!

What better to talk about on Fridays (other than cocktails/deckchairs/sparkling expanses of water) than friendships (my THIRD favourite F word). Well, I wouldn't be me if I let too much time slip between diatribes on friendships, now would I?

So it was pretty timely to see an article published about the six types of friends everyone should have (click here to read the full article).

It pretty much says what I've always said (GENIUS. Excuse me) - that you need to surround yourself with different types of people who provide different types of 'nourishment'. I've always said that you get different things from different people, for example, if I want to wallow, I call Jane. If I'm ready to get over myself and laugh myself sick and get off the phone in a better mood than I ever dreamed possible, I call Cathy.

So essentially the article says there's six types of friends that you need in your life:

• The friend who's cooler than you
• The friend who is up for anything
• The friend who you aspire to be
• The friend who doesn't know any of your other friends
• The friend who's painfully honest
• The friend you've known longer than you've known yourself

Personally I think six is a LOT of friends (haha) but I totally get it. I have friends who cross a few of these categories as well. So here's the breakdown:

The friend who's cooler than you
Um...like ALL of them????

The friend who's up for anything
Cathy. No hesitation. We spent our teenagerhood closing our eyes and jumping off the cliff and I wouldn't have done half of it if she wasn't beside me.

The friend who you aspire to be

How good is it that I have three! There's Jane and Kathy. Honestly two of the most genuinely NICE, generous and giving people who put everyone else first. Always. You really try to hate them for being so NICE but it's impossible. Just beautiful, inside and out. And Larissa, who I aspire to be in a totally different way. Ballsy, driven and has the courage of her convictions, I so wanna be her.

The friend who doesn't know any of your other friends

I've got lots of these, both in Brisbane and Toowoomba and it's great to get a more balanced perspective. Plus you can bitch about your other friends and they won't find out.

The friend who's painfully honest

Oh yeah, love them AND hate them, but you need one of these in your arsenal. Actually I have three. You know who you are.

The friend you've known longer than you've known yourself

How lucky am I that I have known my 'gang' since I was 14/15 years old. And seeing as I've 'known myself' for only about 5 minutes, there's a lot of people included in this group.

Seriously though, it is wonderful to have old long-time friends where you can make a statement about what's happening in your life and they automatically know EXACTLY what impact this event has on you due to past events.

If I'd written this article though, I would have added another category:

The friend who brings out the best in you

See my blog post on Toxic Friends for those who...well, don't.

So do you have your six? Do you have any other categories you'd suggest? I'd love to hear!

Happy Friday :)

xx

Is it time to break up with your toxic friend?

Toxic friends. I'm pretty sure just about everyone has had one. If you haven't then consider yourself so, soooo lucky or just THAT confident that you wouldn't put up with it (in which case, can I have a piece of that?).

It's so common that Hollywood even coined a term for it:

FRENEMY.

So what's a toxic friend?

Well she is that self-absorbed, disrespectful, selfish, manipulative little soul sucking biatch, the one who is overly demanding, speaks to you in a way that you wouldn't even tolerate from your partner (or especially your partner!) and generally makes you feel guilty, undermined, taken advantage of or just simply drained. Everything comes with strings. Every 'innocent' comment designed to hit you where it hurts.

Meanwhile, while they're putting you down, they're expecting you to pick them up.

And yet you put up with it.

Note this isn't exclusively a women only problem, but generally men won't put up with that crap so its inevitable that it happens more often with women. For the purposes of this article Miss Toxic Biatchness will be referred to as a 'she'.

Friends should make you feel good. They should prop you up when you're down, celebrate with you when you're up. Much like a relationship, they should bring out the best in you (and vice versa, otherwise you might become Miss Toxic Biatchness herself, which is kinda not the point here).

Healthy friendships are crazy important for your emotional wellbeing so it's fair to say that an UNhealthy friendship with Miss Toxic Biatchness that is all take and no give, is really detrimental to your mental health.

So why do we put up with her? Let's face it, if you just met Miss Toxic Biatchness, you'd want to slap her silly so why invite her into your front door and give her a key?

So recently it dawned on a friend of mine that someone in her inner circle for many, many years was...well...a disrespectful biatch (aka Miss Toxic Biatchness). Kicking her to the kerb has been a hard journey for my mate and she's still going through the grieving process (yes losing a friend can be as hard as a relationship breaking up). She's still not there but I know she will be because now she's really reviewing the last x amount of years of friendship and realising all the things that she's made excuses for, all the behaviours she's ignored or let go in the name of being a good friend. She's pretty horrified with herself that she let all this happen without even really noticing it.

And God knows I've been through this once or six times myself. So I get that it's not that easy to just 'kick em to the kerb' as is so helpfully suggested by many.

Firstly it can be really hard to recognise that a friend truly is toxic or even if you know it, you feel obligated to 'fix them' or make excuses. Have you ever said 'oh that's just their way' or 'they're just shy' or something else equally inane?

Sadly I have.

Or they don't have anyone else so you feel like you can't abandon them. Or you can't help but remember something wonderful they did for you in the past (which is likely the ONLY wonderful thing, but you've been clinging to it for 20 years) which you then use to excuse their behaviour before and since.

Reminds of a saying that my stepmother used to hang in her kitchen:

If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

The fact is, it isn't your job to fix your so-called friend. And a one-sided friendship sucks. Your soul. Literally.

If talking it out doesn't change things, then you really are doing the only healthy thing for yourself, and that's to walk away. Yes it's hard, and it leaves a hole that you think may never be filled.

But it will. It does, and one day you'll wake up happier and freer and so much more confident that you don't have that toxic, niggling presence of Miss Toxic Biatchness making you feel just a touch worse about yourself day after day. And you'll wonder why you ever put up with such a one-sided friendship that made you feel crap about yourself.

And then you have MORE time for the fulfilling, uplifting friendships that really matter.

It's a mental health service really.

Say it with me people...sayonara Miss Toxic Biatchness.

xx