Survival When There Is No Hope...

If you are a prepper/survivalist what do you do when it becomes apparent that you are not going to survive?

 

Bump

 

I think this is a really good subject for discussion. But not in an "OPEN" forum. But I would sure like to be part of a mature adult discussion.

I did start a thread on a different forum that was a step or two down for it's closeness to accepting the end. I was shocked at what people considered being pushed to their personal limit. Nearly all had zero grasp of being at their physical limit. And nearly all considered stuck in traffic, or people in their office, or their relatives, as their breaking point.

 

I would need more information to answer that.

 

I get that, but my response would vary depending on the situation and how much time I have left. Do I have an incurable disease and less than a year to live? Am I on the beach with a 250 foot tidal wave in sight? Was I just shot in the heart and have only seconds to live?

 

As we age there comes a time for all of us when our mortality becomes questionable. We end up on drugs or treatments that are necessary for our survival. At that point do you just accept the inevitable and stop preparing for a future that you are not going to be a part of or do you forge on? When you have spent most of your life preparing to survive can you just call it quits when you see the grim reaper approaching? I'm not talking about a short term thing but I suspect that a lot of us older guys here are to a more or lesser extent "dead men walking" as far as our chances of long term survival if things totally crash. Drug dependent diabetics, blood pressure issues the list is endless of things that will kill you eventually, more sooner than later if you don't have your medications. How would/do you feel when this becomes your reality?

 

I am still early 50s with grandparents, and other blood relatives who lived into their late 90s and beyond. My dad is nearly 80 and still walks/plays 18 holes every day. My mother is 70 and she smoked for over 40 years. She is still in good health. I figure I am just over halfway at this point.

 

No hope for survival ! I have done been there and I suspect some other of our war veterans have . I can tell you what happens , you live like every hour is going to be your last . That is when you really appreciate every breath of air and are shocked to live to see a sun rise . You will take ridiculous risks when you figure you will be dead before the day is done anyway . A new perspective on life takes over . Those guys you hear about that jumps on a hand grenade to save a buddy is someone sacrificing themselves when they don't think they will live much longer anyway . If you have never been there you may not be able to understand this . I still get up each morning to sit with my Viet Nam memorial coffee cup and watch the sun come up , because after surviving that , I don't take a day for granted .

 

One of my relatives died at just over three score and ten, then lived 20 more years.

This head-of-the-hollar hillbilly had never died before, was preternaturally stubborn, and probably just "didn't get it". Therefore he kept living. The man "just did things" a lot. When he was drinking, you REALLY didn't want to get around him while he was "just doing things" drunk.

I have no reason to go on living, yet I do. Should I worry about that? Sh##, I don't know. If the Lord want's to take me tomorrow, OK, so what.

I'll shoot into a bunch of looters not so much to save myself, but just because I want them ambient temperature.

If Big Brother wants me dead, then put one in my head, I'll eat the lead, that's what I said, Southern man born and bred.

I'm a Southern man, born and bred.

 

As I am nearing 73 and rapidly going blind with Macula Degeneration, for which there is zero known cure and zero know treatment. I have been compelled to devote substantial time attempting to formulate a plan. But I have no option accept to keep searching for a massive lifestyle transformation, from living in paradise, to moving to a senior residence for the blind.

I hope to make it through the winter here in the wilderness of Alaska. This is a hard lifestyle if your a healthy strong 30 y/o male. I spent much of today working on my dozer tracks and truck/tractor. Can't lift heavy parts, or read the sizes on tools. But I guess I'll just keep at it, till I can't keep at it.

One thing that does piss me off is that our government and our society regulates the options for the end. Now this is the part that I have substantial awareness of, as my mother spent her life owning and working nursing homes. I spent a lot of time with those my mother called our guests.

One has to be careful with this discussion, and keep it hypothetical.

 

Those of you with life expectancies into the late 80s and 90s are fortunate. Males in my family seldom make it to 70 and even when they do that life isn't worth much. I have always known that I wouldn't live to a ripe old age in my 80s. That is why I retired as soon as I could so I would get to enjoy it. My Dad worked until he was used up and was as good as dead when he was in his mid-60s. None of the males before his generation made it much past 50. Modern medicine is stretching my life span but I'll never even come close to 80 and will be lucky to make it to 70.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not bothered by this and never have been. Man, I have wrung my life out for all the good that there can be. If I had it to do again I would not change a thing nor wish for it to be different. As has been stated in other posts here, the knowledge of death makes life all the sweeter and you appreciate it and don't take it for granted.

My health has SUCKED for a long time now. Most nights I go to bed with no certainty that I will wake in the morning. The freaking Docs have done all that they could. The funny thing is that when I finally took a turn for the worse it has led to a sort of new Indian Summer. I AM a dead man walking BUT suddenly it isn't the same. A change in treatment has given me a new leaf on life. It is somewhat restricted but I actually feel good again. Man, just being able to get out and do stuff again is amazing. I have been trudging on and suddenly it has gotten easier and life is good again. It isn't going to last for decades but I am going to get everything that I can out of it.

Life is all about TODAY. When death comes for me I will gladly go but he had better be ready for a freaking FIGHT. I would love to have one last fight. You never feel more alive than when you might die. Then when you don't it is even better. This board and a few other places have been my travel, my refuge, for the last 4 or 5 months. I could barely walk most days. I slept 12 to 16 hours a day. All that has changed in the last two weeks!

I asked, "What do you do when it becomes apparent that you are not going to survive?" The answer is that you just keep on going. You survive EVERY DAY and none of us has any guarantee about tomorrow...

 

You posted this while I wrote the above. I'm not all that worried about talking about my situation. I wouldn't have brought it up except that as I suspected there is a lot of thought on this subject. My problem is quite simple massive pernicious anemia left me weak as a kitten. Nothing seemed to help and my body started shutting down. My kidneys gave up and my body started poisoning itself. I felt like three-day-old roadkill!

I started dialysis about a week ago. When you go on dialysis you become a federally declared handicapped person. Drugs and medications that before the insurance fought tooth and nail are suddenly almost like over the counter! Hell, they have pumped me full of iron and some wild ass new medication that was not available to me before and suddenly it is like a light bulb being turned on! I feel good and suddenly am walking all over the place. They have set me up at HOME so I don't even have to go to a dialysis clinic. I just hook up at night and go to sleep. I figure that if things got to crap I will last several months before I wear back down to nothing. During that time I will get my family set up and running. life is good again and I honestly didn't think that it ever would be good again. SUPRISE!!! I'm going fishing THIS week end!!

 

What you think is a 100% non-survivable situation, may not be so. Are you prepared to deal with the tragic consequences of being wrong?

Generically speaking, there have been too many situations where death seemed imminent or certain to come in the near future, yet people have cheated The Reaper against all odds.

I am one.

Several times in my life, I should have died (of different causes, natural and unnatural) but for unexplained reasons, I didn't.

In a couple of situations, it would have made perfect sense for me to end it all by my own hand to ease incalculable suffering and terror. Lord knows I considered it and even made active plans to do The Deed. (Sad thing is, there is no such thing as a 100% foolproof suicide. Survivors of attempted suicide are often left in horrible shape, some are unable to feed or bathe themselves, even.)

Instead, I stayed the course with a lot of prayer for strength and courage. I also prayed for the end to come quickly. It didn't, and now I am stronger for it.

John Wayne quote: Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.

I want to be a John Wayne.


.

 

I agree Lonewolf. I call it the Jim Valvano theory: " Don't Give Up. Don't Ever Give Up." If you are not familiar with him check You Tube. It may be one of the most inspiring speeches I have ever heard, and from what I have read it was a miracle that he could even walk up to the microphone that night he was so ravaged with cancer. That being said when it is inevitable, and your time comes I will make peace with my Maker, and go wherever he leads me. I have had family members live far longer than was ever expected after being diagnosed with terminal illnesses. A great deal of that was accomplished through sheer force of will.

Will I still prepare? I might reduce the time frame a bit. Maybe plan and prepare more for the immediate future than the long term. I don't think I would change much else. I will say as you age you do think about it. It is maudlin in a sense, but it is also realistic. We will buy at least one more car. My wife's car needs to be replaced. After that, I don't know. That could be the last one. It is highly unlikely we will buy any more property. This house is it. When we moved in many years ago, and after carrying several hundred boxes that we packed (no exaggeration my hand to God) I jokingly said " Next time we move somebody can carry me in a box." Now it isn't as much of a joke. Again with age you start checking off the things you can't do anymore. You aren't 8' 6" and bulletproof. It makes you think. I will admit to feeling my mortality.

 

That is true, and then there is Keith Richards.

 

Could very well be. Nothing would surprise me with him.

 

That is what we always suspected. He is already embalmed. He just doesn't know he is supposed to fall over.

 

I think at some point you have to say that you did it, that the mission is accomplished. That is where I am.

 

You die.

 

And maybe, also give the gift of survival to some.

 

If there is absolutely no hope then I'd do what a friend of mine once recommended which is to open a bottle of vintage Cognac and light up a Havana.

 

There aren't any humans where you are though.

 

Everybody is going to die and none of us are going to get out of this world alive. The question is, what you do with the time that you have. Be it long or short nobody generally knows for certain. I like to think that I will put the time that I have left to good use whether it is a month or a decade. The knowledge of my death is no problem. The loss of hope is a killer though and makes you waste the time that you do have.

 

NEVE R QUIT! I will never quit trying, fighting, doing whatever I have to do to survive. I have already done so several times, so I know my limits. The closest I have ever come to dying was when I had no control and was out for surgery. They called a code blue because I bleed out on the table, and I survived that. I've been shot, stabbed and a dozen other severe injuries while "working" as an adult. NEVER QUIT is my ethos. If you quit, you die. If your dead, YOU have failed your loved ones, family, team members and anyone depending on you.

That's how I look at it.

Dale

 

Good evening all,

If there's a no-smoking section, I'm joining Duke in Wales at the party. The Vikings knew how to do this. Will be bringing some cognac, some sour mash bourbon and several boxes of Trader Joe's chocolate biscotti cookie/cake. Will NOT bring any processed meat products because of health reasons.

Plus, the Vikings made the event into a boating trip.

Gotta read up on the maritime signaling ................

 

Sadly about 800,000 people every year lose hope and commit suicide. It happens to rich, poor, strong and weak. Hope is what keeps you going when times get tough. In the event of our world, as we know it going down the tube, loss of hope will be about as deadly as a bullet and people will need to protect themselves and their loved ones from it. As fast as possible you will need to settle into SOME sort of normal lifestyle. People don't do well living in chaos and afraid all the time. Security and the comfort of knowing, or at least pretending to know, what tomorrow will bring is important to mental stability.

 

Whatever you're doing now is what you're doing with the time you have left.

 

Your depth of thought is astounding...

 

Thank you.

 

I believe there is always hope but there are entire generations coming up that see life as having no meaning, no purpose and no hope. Suicide, substance abuse, self harm and increasingly harm of others have always been there but are rampant in the under 30 age group.

I have lived through a number of things that should have killed me. When the Lord calls my name I don’t have a choice but to go. If I end up in a situation where I have to weigh quality of life versus quantity, I will most likely opt for quality. I don’t fear death, but I do want to die well.

 

Millions committing suicide has never happened historically so don't I believe it would happen now.

The Jews did not kill themselves in their millions neither did the Russians (they often ate the dead to survive) and the so called 'Dunkirk spirit' did not come about because of some innate stoicism thats hot wire into British DNA, that came about because of the real fear of a German invasion. If there is a true end of world event I believe some will take their own life but the overwhelming majority will simply starve to death...as will many preppers when their supplies run out.

 

I'm a realist, I live in Wales, when the food runs out I'll have to rely on a couple of polytunnels and what I can shoot, many preppers don't have that luxury for long term survival, do you? I doubt you do from what I read on your posts. The freezers you say are fully loaded with meat etc, how will you run them when the power goes down, do you have solar, small wind turbine(s), deep cycle batteries, inverters?

The chaps I hang out on the whole have extensive backgrounds that has already prepped them long before they became 'preppers' Don't worry about us, we'll do well, but I worry about preppers like yourself stuck in a house with limited or no back up in place, you won't last long unless you change and adapt.

 

Quite probably, but it won’t just be she’ll. Having been in the military and also through a number of significant natural disasters I find it always amazes me who rises to the occasion and who collapses under the weight.

 

LW, modern equipment will last including batteries. Modern solar panels will still be working after I'm dead, modern SSD (solid state drive) drives have a MTBF of anywhere from 100 to 300 years so knowledge will be available, Deep cycle batteries will go a decade. The secret of maintaining a lot of tech equipment is not to run it hot, don't stress components. The amount of knowledge that is available is simply quite staggering, you could very easily store the contents of a typical public library on a computer (if the ebook versions are available). The thought of not have access to knowledge is one of the very few things in life that frighten me and what about future generations?

Lots of old but still valid books are available free and legal, download the kindle app for your laptop and take a look at the Project Guttenberg site, lots of great stuff there, let me start you off
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41925

You could find land and hopefully the equipment, greenhouses, seeds etc you need and grow vegetables but will just the two of you be able to do that and tend to animals without being part of a group?

 

Good morning Duke in Wales,

I urge much caution in reliance on the new stuff.

Leaving the electronics improvements for a moment, glance at the pharma products. The results of the Envoid contraceptive pill are not really finalized as of now.

Nearly 1,000 nuclear tests were performed at the US Nevada test site 1951 - 1992. Yes, the underground tests were safe. Studies from Harvard, RAND, MITRE confirm this.

There must be a reason some are changing to navigation via the celestial method and abandoning the GPS. What ever happened to TACAN, TACAN-C, LORAN ?

Re: "Not having access to knowledge" [sic] (actually: information) is a current matter, at least here in the upstart colonies. Information, like in olden times, is kept locked up and away from the masses. I don't worry about this although it is a burden to me and I'm aware of it on a daily basis.