"Please be strong, don't give up." is terrible advice.

When I look back at the most difficult times in my life, I realize that the best decision I made was giving up. It's time to ditch this toxic mindset that if you persevere long enough, you will get through whatever the world's thrown at you and come out the other side. Sometimes the only right thing you can do is stop trying.<br><br>Nameless voices in your head telling you to kill yourself? Just be strong enough and they'll go away. It's been years since they've started and you still haven't gotten used to it? Oh well, at least you're strong and haven't given up. I guess the best we can hope for is that one day we'll be strong enough for the voices to go away, but until then, the best advice we can give is to deal with it? Fuck that.<br><br>My ex girlfriend suffers from chronic pain, and has since she was a kid. She's strong. I'm sure of it. She hasn't killed herself. She's the strongest person I know. She's still in pain though. She always will be. It doesn't matter how strong you are, pain is still pain. It's time to stop glorifying the people who deal well with chronic problems and start working on solutions to end those problems as soon as possible. You can't end these problems if you don't believe they're a problem, and society is too accepting of problems like these. <br><br>It's okay to give up. It's okay to not be strong. It's okay to kill yourself. Not because any of these problems will go away if you do, but because if you've made the decision that it's what you feel you need to do, you've probably made that decision for a good reason. A reason that we, as a society, have thrown to the wayside and ignored for too long.