Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Hope and help

The Fear The Walking Dead midseason premiere had a very clear message: To survive a zombie apocalypse, long term, you need a little help and A LOT of hope.

In case I’ve never said so before, let me say it now: A zombie apocalypse will be bleak. Take the Season Four midseason finale for example: We watched as the group’s home was surrounded by flaming walkers, they lost all the people they’d taken in, then had the stadium overrun by the aforementioned walkers, then lost Madison. That is, quite frankly, a pretty good display of just how bleak a zombie apocalypse can be.

With that being where we left off, it’s not too surprising that our group was, for the most part, not in the best of spirits as we got into the midseason premiere.

While this is a natural reaction should one experience such loss, you can’t let it get out of hand: It’s a mental trap that can swallow you whole if you let it.

When you’re so wrapped up in your despair that you become oblivious to things going on around you, that’s a bad sign; When you remember that, being in a zombie apocalypse, there will be zombies wandering around, you’ll also remember just how bad of sign such behavior can be!

Considering that your objective in a zombie apocalypse is to survive, you want to keep behavior that can get you eaten to a minimum.

Of course, that sort of behavior is worse when it’s intentional…

If you saw Charlie almost let herself get bitten during the midseason premiere, you know what I mean. No matter how bad you may feel, or how severe your despair may get, letting yourself get bitten by a zombie is not the answer!

Let me reiterate: Your goal is to survive. There are better ways to face your feelings of guilt, sadness, or depression than suicide. Trust me on this.

Before anyone thinks that the “better ways” of dealing with guilt, depression, etc. that I just spoke of include getting wasted with booze or God only knows what else you might find, let me just say now that, no, that is not what I’m saying.

Yeah, you might enjoy getting drunk, but, it won’t do a damn thing to alleviate any of those emotions, and…how well do you think you’d be able to fight while drunk? If you survive a drunken brawl with a zombie without getting bitten in the first few seconds, consider it a miracle.

Okay, the apocalypse will be bleak, so…what do we do about it?

Well, first things first (Especially if we’ve lost people): We need a purpose. We need to have and to know there is a reason for what we’re doing.

Whether that reason is some goal we need to reach, a person we need to be there for,  appreciating the people we still have, or, quite simply, to survive as long as possible, we need a purpose. Few things push people into the abyss then deprivation of purpose; In its absence is where despair lies.

You know what can be a good purpose to assign yourself? Trying to help someone else.

Even while dealing with your own problems, you’ll still find people just trying to survive the apocalypse, and they may need a hand fending off the dead or staving off starvation. Maybe helping them will give you a new friend, or remind you that you can still do some good, or maybe it’ll just make you too busy to listen to the despair in the back of your mind.

Of course, there’s also other people in your group. Chances are, if you’ve lost someone, that person meant something to them, too. For all you know, that person might have meant even more to your teammates than they did you. Maybe the rest of your group is struggling with their loss and its aftermath more than you realize or more than they let on. Maybe you helping them get through will help you, too. We all need help, sometimes.

The last bit of advice I’ll leave you with is relatively simple: Just because you’re in a zombie apocalypse, doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.

Silly as it might sound, having puzzles, games, books, comics, or (If you can spare the power to use them) movies and video games can be extremely useful in keeping your head in the game, no pun intended.

You see, if you’re in this bleak world, and only have the death, the struggle, the horror, and the loss to think about, of course your mind will go to dark places! Sometimes, just having something to keep your mind off those things for a little while can do wonders for your morale. Sure, it might sound stupid, but, if having fun means you don’t want to die, it’s not really stupid at all, is it?

A zombie apocalypse will be bleak, I won’t lie to you. To deny all the awful things you’ll see and experience in it would be, frankly, dangerous. However, your goal is to survive the apocalypse, to outlast it, to beat it.

You can’t let despair swallow you. You need to remember that life is worth fighting for, and, if you have a group, that there are still people that need you. If you need them to remind you, that’s fine, that’s what teams and friends are for.

Despair is your enemy, but, with a little help, and a lot of hope, you can beat it.

This is why you follow…The Rules.

And that’s our survival rule of the week!! Hopefully, it’ll help you give you that mental edge that will prove so crucial once the dead start eating everyone.

If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!