Mental Health

I am certain some folks are looking at this going Huh..

Since a growing portion of survivalists are looking to try and get ready for a long term problem, pandemic, economic collapse, EMP weapon takes out the electrical grid, or the zombie apocalypse.

I have started to notice all the books offer the same tidbits that I learned in survival school back in 02, which is fine for short term problems my instructors back them said the purpose of the training was to get you from the point you stepped in the mess to the point of rescue.

But what is nobody if coming?

I am certain we have some combat vets here that say I have seen hell I can handle it, great... what about your wife, or kids, or anyone in your group that did not get tempered in the same fire as you?

How are you going to look after them and help them deal with the stress and panic over such a radical change in their life?

I mean I think I am pretty strong in the will power department yet at the same time I have no idea how I would react if I woke up tomorrow the power was off and I had just enough information to know it will be at least a decade before it comes back, that would be a brutal shock to the system.

I am looking for suggestions, about as far as I have gotten is plan for my pets to be with us, people in my group are actual friends not just people with good skills, the primary reason being it can give the illusion of normalcy, but even I know enough to realize this is just a stop gap measure.

Pets
Friends
Family
board games
card games

So what is your plan?

a reply to: Irishhaf

As well as your preliminary list, I would include the following, singular point, which would have a great effect on morale:

Have a plan to get power, even when none is available.

Figure out what parts you would need, and where to get them, to build a dynamo system, and a storage medium for energy so produced. Actually have a plan to partially solve the problem, at least for yourself and your immediate folks. Over time, develop a plan to scale up, perhaps utilise nearby watercourses to produce hydroelectric power that can be stored in batteries, fed through converters to items which require power of a particular form or rating. Make progress toward solutions.

Obviously, when the crap hits the fan, you need to think about the situation and whether it endangers you in your home, do you need to move, have you got a secondary site you can bed down in, that sort of thing. Are you fed, watered, where are your next meals coming from, do you need to hunt? But beyond the immediate, have goals which include a simulation of normalcy by way of actually solving the immediate problem. If the immediate problem is shelter, build a dwelling. If the immediate problem is power, figure out what you need to do to produce some. If the immediate problem is a lack of access to drinking water, make a condenser, or a filter pump which operates by hand if necessary...

Make solutions possible by ingenuity and basic engineering skills.

Nothing is impossible, only ever difficult, and difficult things are often those which come with the highest rewards. People get despondent only when there are no solutions in mind. Given reasonable solutions, achievable goals, something to do which has a noticeable effect, or significantly contributes to a shared problems solution, most folk will be just fine getting on with things. Its total despair and no solution in sight, that destroys confidence and saps will.

a reply to: Irishhaf

Just plain no power water ice food phone internet facebook for more than a week, with none expected to come, under the impression of total collapse, all that alone would set in motion an emotional mass contagion suicidal tendencies effect. Now add in the panic and looting and the population count in the "civilized" world would dropped markedly in short order.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
I don't know, I actually enjoyed the power being out for four days during Irma recently when the rest of the street was clearly losing it. My wife was miserable during the heat though and was extremely stressed out. The kids all seemed to sleep much better without A/C though and the windows open. I sleep better when its retarded hot myself.

Not having a fridge available at my residence was what annoyed me the most. Id probably just go full on maniac though if there was an actual threat of no power coming back and I needed resources that can only be gotten by force at that point. Got to do what you got to do for survival.

a reply to: Irishhaf

No idea what I would do...


For entertainment Seeing what would happen to the millennials, snowflakes and Instagram whores would keep it interesting.....


RA

a reply to: Irishhaf

You have to think long term. Money will not be important, people who need medicine to survive won't. People will become evil and self serving before the end to a two week span. Know those things are a reality, and plan accordingly. I have a few people who I have spoken with that in the event of a disaster, we will bond together and do our best to survive.

The soft fluffy all encompassing "love" attitude that most have today will need to be one of the first things to go. A leader will be imperative and that leader has to be strong.

And bullets might well become the currency that replaces the dollar.

Not doing a good job laying out my thought process (lack of sleep sucks) I think, what I am more looking at would be the moment it truly hits you that the world is now different.

For instance in my case living in germany right now, if the SHTF I would be stuck over here at best for several more years at worst I would never see home again.

During the time where everything was going crazy and your struggling to survive yea you live moment to moment to try and build something.

But during that time when things have found an equilibrium and you have some time to think beyond finding food or water the next day and it hits me that I may never see my father again, or log onto the web to learn something unique.

I imagine that would be crushing emotionally, now imagine you have a kid who like most have a cell phone surgically attached to their hand and it hits them that the phone may never work again.

It seems to me that those kind of moments are the ones that can drive the most prepared person to do something stupid.

But I dont know maybe I am over thinking it, I know just enough psychology to know there are some major pitfalls out there that few people seem to be even considering let alone trying to prepare for.

You hear the story that 90% would die from a EMP attack.

This i believe because most would die from just not knowing how to survive.

I believe 70% would just sit down and wait to die because they would have no idea what to do.

I also believe 5% would survive longer then they would have if there had not been a EMP attack because they would have to quit smoking and get off there ass and lose weight surviving some of these might even be early type 2 diabetics.

Me i live in the calif desert but have fishing gear and three lakes within biking range with eatable plants around them.

likely i will lose at least 100 pounds in the first year.

a reply to: Irishhaf

Very few have the physical and mental strength to survive alone and it would be a fairly crap way to live.

Community, shared endeavour and a little hard work will always trump the loner.

1. Establish food and potable water sources.
2. Establish some safe shelter.
3. Establish clothing production and sanitation facilities.
4. Establish communications, medicine and health resources, transportation, power generation and mechanization.
5. Build a community of co-workers who see the priorities of survival and cooperation.
5. Seek to expand those resources.
6. Establish rule of law to protect the basics of survival and community.
7. Implement a system of barter to support expertise specialisation in the growing community.
8. Establish materials production for manufacturing and begin to protect intellectual rights.
9. Seek expansionism by inclusion and advantage, not by force.
10. Establish a currency that is something that assigns value by utility and neccessity, that cannot be stockpiled and that can grow organically as the society grows.
11. Establish a constitution of governmental principles based upon extension of the most generally effective and positive ideas of the past and avoiding specific pitfalls.
12. Encourage artistic expression but especially as embellishment of functional utility and education about the basics of the constitution.
13. Establish a system of legal review where laws can be changed in a controlled manner and outcomes can be measured and evaluated, if the preceeding law was fairer or more effective after review within a reasonable and pre-set time frame, the changes are deprecated or modified by a legal review comittee. Due to separation of powers, this comittee is not to contain people who are part of the government, police, correctional facilities or of the courts.
14. Use the disaster as the opportunity to reset society intelligently.

originally posted by: Irishhaf
I am certain some folks are looking at this going Huh..
Since a growing portion of survivalists are looking to try and get ready for a long term problem, pandemic, economic collapse, EMP weapon takes out the electrical grid, or the zombie apocalypse.

I think people who are "survivalists" may have mental health problems. Having faith in an omnipotent God is very easy. How can you lose? But having faith in your fellow man, wow, now that takes some real serious faith. There is one thing I know for certain above all else. People love to copulate and have babies. And as long as people continue to copulate and have babies we will continue to have a robust economy.

If you think the zombie apocalypse is real then I suggest you take a few college level science classes.

a reply to: chr0naut

So you are suggesting communism is the solution to rebuilding everyone's wealth. It makes sense. After WWII the Russians were destroyed but in a very short few years became a super power equal to the United States.

a reply to: dfnj2015

A zombie apocalypse is unlikely in the extreme, but there are plenty of other scenarios in which a major, devastating, nation crumbling event could occur, without being outside the realms of possibility. Cosmic derived disasters, comet impacts of certain scales, a solar flare from the upper band of the X range, ploughing directly into Earths magnetosphere, buggering up the electrical grids, supervolcano eruptions and all the fun they bring, nuclear war...

While these things may appear for all the world like highly unlikely scenarios, if you prepare to survive them, you can survive anything else, and as countless stories from flood, hurricane, tornado and quake hit regions will attest, preparation saves lives, and a lack of it makes death far more likely.

It is not a mental illness to prepare for the worst. It is a mental illness which says "The worst is so unlikely, that I shall think of it no more, and continue to sip this Gin and Tonic without the merest concern!".

I am sure the people of Pompeii wished, in their last, burning, awful moments, that they had made better preparation for escape from the worst that might have happened. As it is, their flash charred corpses, coated in ash and preserved by it for millennia, attest to the fact that preparing to get the hell out of dodge at least, is better than falling to ones knees and praying to Jupiter for clemency.

a reply to: Irishhaf

If an event happens that includes both sides of the pond, I think it would be way more than survivalists could deal with.
In a case like that, living would be the curse.

a reply to: chr0naut

Can I join your clan of caring, intelligent humans?

originally posted by: Irishhaf
I am certain some folks are looking at this going Huh..

Since a growing portion of survivalists are looking to try and get ready for a long term problem, pandemic, economic collapse, EMP weapon takes out the electrical grid, or the zombie apocalypse.

I have started to notice all the books offer the same tidbits that I learned in survival school back in 02, which is fine for short term problems my instructors back them said the purpose of the training was to get you from the point you stepped in the mess to the point of rescue.

But what is nobody if coming?

I am certain we have some combat vets here that say I have seen hell I can handle it, great... what about your wife, or kids, or anyone in your group that did not get tempered in the same fire as you?

How are you going to look after them and help them deal with the stress and panic over such a radical change in their life?

I mean I think I am pretty strong in the will power department yet at the same time I have no idea how I would react if I woke up tomorrow the power was off and I had just enough information to know it will be at least a decade before it comes back, that would be a brutal shock to the system.

I am looking for suggestions, about as far as I have gotten is plan for my pets to be with us, people in my group are actual friends not just people with good skills, the primary reason being it can give the illusion of normalcy, but even I know enough to realize this is just a stop gap measure.

Pets
Friends
Family
board games
card games

So what is your plan?

I am not going to disclose my plans on this site or any other site...but thanks for the great idea....

Currently, I'm still trying to get deal with someone else's Relationship PTSD...that in itself can also triggers even more stress on our life and in order to handle your own insanity, I suggest to find like minded mental stable persons before grabbing whosoever...and let the group bring about healthy change to the one that needs it ...dont try and go one on one

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: Irishhaf
I am certain some folks are looking at this going Huh..
Since a growing portion of survivalists are looking to try and get ready for a long term problem, pandemic, economic collapse, EMP weapon takes out the electrical grid, or the zombie apocalypse.

I think people who are "survivalists" may have mental health problems. Having faith in an omnipotent God is very easy. How can you lose? But having faith in your fellow man, wow, now that takes some real serious faith. There is one thing I know for certain above all else. People love to copulate and have babies. And as long as people continue to copulate and have babies we will continue to have a robust economy.

If you think the zombie apocalypse is real then I suggest you take a few college level science classes.

So it's easy to have faith in God huh....?ever actually try it? Cuz right now...its the ONLY thing that's keeping me alive!!!

a reply to: TrueBrit

Cirrhosis of the liver is probably mankind's biggest threat.

I had two friends. One who believed in the second coming of Christ. And another who believed the world was about to enter extreme chaos and economic collapse. Both prepared their whole lives for these two events as God's absolute honest truth. Both died of natural causes in their old age. One died at 84. The other 79. Both are now long dead and gone. That's my point. You are and I will be long dead and gone before prepping or being a survivalist will ever matter.

a reply to: dfnj2015

It is fundamentally impossible for you to know that.

For all you know, a supervolcano somewhere could go off, make a drastic change to the climate, and bugger things up for years, all beginning next week. I am not assuming that it will, but I would rather have it in mind that it might, and have a plan for if it does, than not think about it at all, and get wiped through a lack of preparedness.

I've had a question that's boggled my mind for some time.

How come survival guides can't survive the elements.

Fire I can understand. But not water resistant...

a reply to: dfnj2015

I have had friends that prepped lost their job unexpectedly and they were able to use their preps to to eat, while what money they could scrounge together paid the house bills.

Also have had to use some preps myself after an unexpected ice storm left us without power for a week.

As for the zombie apocalypse comment, first time I heard it used in regards to prepping the young guy said if I am ready for the zombie apocalypse I am ready for anything. It is just used as a marker for what they are aspiring for not a literal interpretation of the words.