the thing that everyone always forgets about

[thesurvivor]

it seems that everyone always forgets about the psychological impact of surviving the zombie apocalypse. ever been a day without food? how about water? ever slept in a ditch? ever felt like your life was in danger? ever stole from somebody? ever killed somebody (hopefully not)? <--ever experienced all of that at once? these things can trigger a number of psychological disorders. but my question to you is what new types of syndromes and disorders do you think that survivors will have? studies have shown that many smart phone users feel a phantom vibration syndrome, where they believe they feel their phone vibrating only to find out it wasn't. I've experienced this a few times. 10 years ago this was unheard of. my question also stems from world war z, where they talk about people pretending to be zombies, and apocalypse despair syndrome, where a healthy person would go to sleep and then die from just complete hopelessness. one of the most interesting stories i've heard, but haven't read, is one where a man discovers that he can no longer walk down the street without thinking of ways to kill people. so what do you think will happen to the human psyche?

[Neil]

I'd imagine the complete loss of society and basically everything your average person was used to would be insanely stressful. Add to this the never ending worry for you day to day survival I would imagine the biggest problem would be the simple will to "carry on!"

[thesurvivor]

But for those that can carry on, people like rick, daryl, joel, denzel washington , what do you think it would be like inside someone like that's head on a normal day? What do they think when they hear a zombie? What do they think when they see another person? Could they even become a functioning part of society after all of this is over, or would they be like the man that just thinks of ways to kill people? What new types of disorders and such do you think survivors will develop? Like my example about phantom vibrations, this is something that just came about in recent years, as well as seperation anxiety with cell phones.

[EvilNed]

The first few days, weeks and months would be almost impossible to bear. Not only would you lose everything, you'd lose it in a very gruesome way. Your neighbors and family might have gotten eaten in front of you. You would be constantly on the run (if you weren't, you'd most likely be dead). Maybe you're holed up somewhere, surrounded by zombies with supplies running low. Essentially, you know that it's only a matter of time before you have to dare the outside. But after awhile. Maybe a few months down the road. A year maybe. I think a person would adapt. Not to become this cool killing machine, but rather to a simple surviving machine. We've done it before, thousands of years ago, and we could do it again.

[thesurvivor]

It makes sense about becoming a survival machine, but i do think it will take a little more time. People thousands of years ago we're better equiped to survive because they lived harsh lives. I think that people would be better equiped to become killing machines because zombies look like humans (besides the fact that theyre rotting away) what if someone just couldnt tell the difference anymore? Thats a scary thought lol

[rongravy]

I know the shits I take would be alot shorter, which will cut into my meditation time. Could up the stress levels... I can't imagine slowwww zombies taking over anything, more like popping up after the initial shock when someone dies untended to like an unwanted pest. This pretty much leads me to believe it'd be faster ones, which would keep pretty much everyone on constant edge. I also don't really think we'd all last very long i that happened. Imagining the slow ones could take over, then I'm pretty sure I'd do anything I had to do to protect whatever is left of my family. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do anything bad for shits and giggles alone, and I'm sooooo not a raper...

[thesurvivor]

Well im talking about years down the line, not the initial outbreak, so who knows what kind of horrible person you could be! jk. I really like to look at joel from the last of us, if you havent played the video game you can look it u, its won over 200 awards for its achievment in story telling. ^he starts out as this normal everysay dude, single father, struggling to keep his job, then the shit hits and his daughter dies. Pick up the story 20 years later and he's a hard shell of a man, if the story was told form anyone elses pov, he would deffinitly be a villian. Through conversations we learn that he used to be a hunter (like the walking dead but idk if he ever ate people) ^but my point about all that is that although he doesnt kill for fun, he dosent even show even the smallest bit of remorse about it, in fact he doesnt even have to get all intense about it, it seems like second hand nature to him now. In a torture scene he dosnt yell, or even put much effort into it. You can check it out on youtube if you'd like. ^and even with all of that he still has emotions, and still cares for some of the people he is with (even choosing ellie over the entire world, literally) I think that people like him, could be the future of humans in a zombie apocalypse, although i dont imagine that everyone will be as sane as him.

[sandrock74]

I think most initial survivors would be in a constant state of PTSD. Eventually, long term, people would shake it off. Adapt to survive....otherwise, die off.

[thesurvivor]

Im sure things like nightmares would be long term, and probably drug addiction would be bad. Lots of people in withdraw at the same time thats got to be bad. I heard a story about a holocaust survivor who took extacy (probably misspelled that) at slept for the first time in years without having nightmare. What about people living in quarantine zones, where its safe? (At least for zombies)