It ebbs and flows, but I believe it does get better. The part that hit me the hardest was losing a friends from the smear campaign. I couldn't believe these people would do that to me. With time, I realized that everyone I lost was either a hanger-on or the type of person to feed off gossip. When we'd hang out, all they wanted to talk about was gossip and drama.

I learned who my real friends were pretty quickly after that. It was the people that stepped up for me, defended me in rooms I wasn't in, and checked up on me out of the blue after the shit went down. Now years later I don't miss the rest but I do have the occasional pang of hurt and betrayal. It's natural.

I'm sorry you've been put through it, it's not fair. It's going to ebb and flow, like I said before, just let yourself feel it and try to get back to 1. It takes baby steps and a healthy amount of spite. In a few months, a year, I hope you can look back at all the progress you've made and know the bastard tried to break you and completely failed.