I'm experiencing a number of bumps in my life in the past couple of months that are causing me to reach out to my friends and family for help, emotionally and monetarily. I've been getting pretty deep into TRP for the past several months and am getting a bit anxious about my perceived value in the eyes of others, especially a certain long-time close friend who I recently introduced to TRP.

Last night I was in a situation where I was debating with a mutual friend in his presence, and some of my points were made with hamster-fu tactics. I asked him for feedback because I knew that I was somewhat hamstery, and he told it to me straight; I appreciated it. But I also proceeded to hamster and defend myself to him, which is obviously needy/low value behavior on my part again. I'm not so concerned about the situation, but it brought my string of low value behavior to the fore-front in my mind, and I feel like I'm at a crossroads in terms of RP/BP... so on with the question:

I am making an honest attempt to better myself in a number of ways and making great progress, but I'm still far from perfect. I sensed an air of TRP-influenced responses from this friend which I think would be appropriate to a stranger who was hamstering... but is there room for exceptions in the case of close friends who are genuinely in need of help?

I believe man-man friendships are something valuable and worth tolerating temporary low value behavior out of, as long as it is clearly temporary. In other words, I want to be honest and open with my friends when I am in difficult situations without putting up the "solid frame" front, being that I am exhausted and ravaged by the world at the moment, plain lacking energy. I don't want to lose friends over being "too" honest and open, but I am prepared to suck it up and put up a front if it's a necessary part of life. What does TRP think?

TLDR: Should I continue to speak freely with long term friends and not worry about my frame, or should I put up a shield and keep my problems to myself? Would an RPer be in the right to drop a friend for behaving in low value ways that are the result of temporary times of weakness?

edit: wording