Learn from real survival experiences
SHTF School is about real survival scenarios, instead of TV show survival fiction. Real people share real experiences.
Corona Virus Panic & What Matters Now
I put back some of the articles on my page, articles that I find are make sense for new situation in the world about this new Corona virus.
I felt there is need to put back some of that in this situation.
Whatever happens with this new epidemic or pandemic chaos around the world, as I always said it it will come to the bare essence of the people vs. resources combination.
Was, plagues, climate changes, asteroids… at the end it always come to the same: more people than resources.
Some of the articles here on page I wrote years ago, most of them are about situations that happened 25 or more years ago, but if you read it carefully and if you “transfer” some of that to your settings or this time you ll see philosophy and basics are same, for most of the situations.
Rest of the my articles archive and my articles from other places, and stories that are not being published on line anywhere are published as a books for some time on Amazon:
SHTF Survival Stories: Memories from the Balkan War
Corona, system, panic
Situation with Corona virus changes everyday, and that change is towards bad everywhere not to good, I still think this virus is not necessary so dangerous like most of us think (time will show if Im right), but that does not mean too much to us in “prepper terms” because I still think it will bring pretty big chaos everywhere.
Chaos will be more or less everywhere because many reasons like poor system reaction to virus, false information on public media about pandemic, panic, and generally poor will of people to live in changed times.
All that essentially and eventually may bring to the situation mentioned above: more people then resources.
We have being bombarded with information that system will take care for this thing, and in the same time as a preppers we need to know that system can not take care about things like this, if this gonna last for a long time.
Few examples:
stay tuned
Staying “tuned” or being mesmerized by info that “officials” will provide you for latest crisis makes sense if you wanna be kinda “aware” where things may go, or if you want to “check pulse” of the system, but to be mesmerized by it to the levels that you base your important decisions on it is simply wrong (as i mentioned many times before).
System job is simple-to keep the system running, so you are probably not gonna heard on TV official warning something like “we are out, it iseverybody for himself”.
At least you not gonna heard it on time to make some difference to you.
I listening here for days public announcements that “there is no need to stash up, to buy huge amonts of food, meds, water etc, because there is no need for it, goverment had it under control”.
Then yesterday I read bit shy government statement that “every household should have enough food, meds etc, so it can survive for couple of weeks without need to go out”
Now, if you waited here in my region for that announcement yesterday and go out to buy stuff, you could not find some items like masks, hand gel sanitizer and similar.
So, if you are prepper, survivalist, it really does not make sense to wait for someone to tell you “you need to go out and stock up”.
Smart people (survivalists) did that long time ago.
system and panic
I do not know how things are going there wherever you are, but here in my region it seems that people who are handling this crisis and make decisions are kinda idiots, at least majority of them.
There were so many flaws in dealing with this that often I am thinking about conspiracy theories now.
But then again, here everything is politics, and everything is about how things are “under the control” even when they are very far from any kind of control.
So people who are not competent will go out with info that will bring more panic, more false info, and at the end more misunderstanding and eventually chaos.
I have friend who works in goverment “crisis center”. He was out on radio, making statement that everything is under control, no need to panic, no need to buying stuff… on same day he called me privately and told me “you need to stock up and be prepared”, i told him “thank you i will” , of course he do not know I am prepared since the time of his elementary school.
What about people who trust his public anouncment?
Again, job of the system is to keep system running.
what going to happen?
Well nobody knows, but if you telling me that this virus does not have impact on society just go and check what measures China government took, in order to contain it.
And then think is your goverment is ready to do measures like Chinese, and are people around you ready to “agree” with measures like in China?
I know for sure here it would bring society to complete stop, and then to chaos.
So do I think we all going to die from virus, no, definetly not, but I do think there is huge possibility we might be pushed back, in some cases we might be pushed back in chaos and system collapse, for some time.
So, it definitely makes sense to be prepared for it.
What I think about how SHTF will be
I have a question. Would you please take a moment to explain your own prediction of how SHTF will occur in USA? How do you think it will be different than in your own country? How do you predict it will start, and how will it spread? Finally what is your prediction of how will SHTF end? Of course it is only your personal prediction but I highly value your words. If you would respond to this question I would be most grateful. Thank you.
It is hard to give any prediction for anything, but my opinion, and i say again it is only my opinion. It is gonna be very bad. Worst. Why? Several reasons, and to say at beggining most important reason is not about it is USA, most important reason is because it is highly industialized and modern society.
And great majority of people is forget, or even never heard about lot of things, like how to grow food, or how to be without eletricity, internet,clean water. How to fight for that almost every day.
How to wash their clothes, with hands, how to roast coffe beans on fire, how to transfer big tree into the small firewood. How many households in modern society have wood stoves in their houses, apartments?
There s gonna be lot of desperate people.There is gonna be a lot of angry people.
It is not about USA, it is actually how modern society is, funny but for poorly organized countries it is gonna be like “oh my God, not again” but for modern societies it is gonna be like “oh my God it is the end of everything”. Big difference.
Now please do not understand me wrong, at the end all comes to the single man,and groups of people,how good they organized. Societies will fail. Prepared man can survive lot of things.
Everything comes to the end, i am beliveing that we are not first here, and not gonna be last on this place, important thing is what kind of people we gonna be?
We as humans have become arrogant and forgot where we come from.
Sleep Deprivation and SHTF
Image from Häggström, Mikael (2014). “Medical gallery of Mikael Häggström 2014”. WikiJournal of Medicine 1 (2). DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.008. ISSN 2002-4436. Public Domain.
It is one of those things that lot of people do not see, that when SHTF they will have big problems with and due to sleep deprivation.
Reasons are many, maybe it is going to be too dangerous so you’ll be forced to stay awake for prolonged time, or simply your sleep cycle will be messed up because you’ll be depressed when SHTF, or you will not have enough time for quality sleep…
It is important to understand what you can expect when sleep deprivation gets you…
Your Performance
I use to call that feeling –„being in a bubble“.
It is like being on drugs that makes you feel like you do not care about things around you.
For example you find yourself in situation when you do not care are you going to be shot, you clearly see that you have high chances to be shot from sniper on very dangerous intersection, you see that odds are high for that, but you taking that small chance (of not being shot) and go over that intersection, partly because you do not care and partly because you are feeling invincible.
You are in the „bubble“, in a strange state of feelings and processing information around you and that „bubble“ came, largely, from sleep deprivation.
Your perception of danger situation gets twisted in weird ways, and you react different, sometimes you want to be hero without reasons, or sometimes you become coward – again without reason.
Let’s at least say it moves you out of your „normal“.
Once, I was hiding for 3 days in ruined house with my friend, while unit of soldiers were out on the street.
Maybe 50 people with one tank, they were drinking and occasionally entering houses around our house to check for stuff, their tank was broken, something with engine and they kept the engine roaring almost all the time, fixing something with fuel or oil.
We did not sleep for those 3 days, we were ready to jump in a split second if they entered our house. On the third day my friend announced to me that he is writing poem about this situation, and I myself was very close to going out to the guys and tell them that I do not believe in war or something like that, in the belief they’d respond with ‘Okay, well then go from here(!?!)’.
Luckily that day they moved away after they fixed the engine.
Weird Things
It is subjective, but based on my personal experience you can expect after 3-4 days of no sleeping during SHTF to see things that are not there, or on the other hand not to see things that there. (Toby comment: Be aware this can happen MUCH sooner in some people, even in less than 24hrs depending on the stressors around, age of the individual and overall fatigue level, among other influences)
This fact was reason for many deaths, and also it was reason for many scary legends in that time.
Personally I saw couple of times people that are not falling down after clearly being shot several times, dead people walking, strange lights, sounds, or simply let’s say ‘ghosts’.
I learned over the time to notice and observe things like that, but not to react, otherwise I would probably have gone crazy.
When you hear baby crying 10 meters from you in abandoned and ruined house in the middle of night and you follow the sound and go there, and there is nothing there, but now same sound coming from other room that can give you some weird feelings in your guts.
You observe, but not react-otherwise you go crazy.
Fear and lack of sleep will play with your mind.
What Can You Do?
Just like with lot of other things connected with SHTF very often you can not do s..t with sleep deprivation because it simply will be there, but there are things that you can consider because they help:
-Stay Healthy
Sleep deprivation when SHTF is always accompanied with other things, so it is good to at least take away that other things. If you are having diarrhea, or you are malnourished, or simply you are out of shape AND you are in the middle of sleep deprivation that makes things a lot worse.
If you are in good shape and having lack of sleep, it is something that you can work with, you can survive.
– Do Not Be Alone
It is good old SHTF advice- do not be alone. Being with someone means that you can have support, someone who can recheck your decisions (or vice versa), someone who can take lead when you are „down“ or simply someone who can be awake while you are taking short sleep.
–Be Careful With Stimulants (drugs, alcohol. etc…)
It is maybe not „politically correct“ to say, but again based on personal experience drugs and alcohol are helping in sleep deprivation BUT only in short terms, on longer terms actually they will f..k you up even more, so be VERY careful with that, nothing can beat a short normal nap.
– Have Short Naps!
I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I had a full night sleep during my SHTF period. But I did have short naps. 20-30 minutes. And they help.
Even in the middle of shelling or fight, somewhere hidden (more or less) I would put sunglasses on and cotton in ears and had short nap. It was very „shallow“ sleep.
At night sunglasses can minimize the effects of flashes around you, and cotton can take away a bit of detonations sound. (yes, good thing to store today is „eye covers” for sleeping and ear plugs)
Sleep Deprivation and You
I have to point out that my SHTF experience was bit „drastic“, so you may not be found in middle of shelling, but still I can assure you that you will have problems with sleep deprivation when SHTF because of the amount of new situations that SHTF brings, so be prepared for that.
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