In a total collapse situation, death is something that everyone will become much more familiar with. You could be the best survivalist in the world but a loss may destroy you. Even if you know you are going to lose someone soon due to health issues, nothing can prepare you enough to not grieve for their life. The severity of the grief will depend upon how close your relationship was and the status of their health before the SHTF event occurred. Usually deaths that are sudden among young, healthy individuals are the hardest to handle.

​

If you are in a complete state of anarchy after a collapse, you will have to learn to expect death. You will need to brace for the worst and move on quickly after a loss. You won't have time to morn for long or you may put your own life at risk. This means overall death will have to be rationalized faster. You will have to rapidly decide if your life is worth living after that loss or not. A truly long term survival situation would be hell on earth and not an easy place to live in. 

​

There are many places in the Bible that you can draw inspiration from. In the book of Job the story teaches us how God tested Job. He was a healthy, wealthy man with a large family and God took everything from him to test his faith. His friend finally tells him as he's moping along to stop what he was doing and take a moment to consider all the wonders of God that still exist around him. The moral is that when your emotions are suppressing you sometimes just taking a moment to realize how much good is around you will help get you through the bad times.

 

In a long term survival situation you will probably need to help others process their grief as well. Some of the side effects of grief are lack of appetite and inability to stay hydrated. These are two dangerous things in a collapse situation. Don't try to instantly pluck them out of their misery. They usually don't want to listen to reason right away, their emotions will be overwhelming for a while. Take a moment to just be with them and work with them. Be a shoulder they can lean on if they want to. Pray for them and tell them that you are. It may help to know that they have people rooting for them.

​

In a post collapse society there may be different consequences for the loss of a man vs a woman. Both women and men could be more or less emotional about the loss but it can cause immense strength in either as well. However if a woman is with a man and he dies it could leave her in a vulnerable position. On the same note if a man or a woman is left alone when their loved one dies they may not be able to survive very long.

​

Age also plays a factor in long term survival. Older and very young people may be able to handle death better than a middle aged individual. However, both old and very young people are at risk if their middle aged caretakers are the ones that die.

​

This article is a speculation of the emotions that we might feel when dealing with the large scale death that is predicted to accompany a collapse. However, loved ones are lost everyday. There are many things that could be taken into account before we are faced with the emotions of a loss. Nobody wants to be thinking about finances and paperwork when dealing with grief. If you would like to learn about some of those aspects you should be thinking about now to avoid those problems later check out my article: Losing Your Loved One