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The Mindset and Experience of a Single Competent Female Prepper, by Skylar
For the majority of my adult life– 34 years– I have taught, lived, worked, and recreated in wilderness settings. I appreciated JMS’s call for articles from single female preppers, as it has been a frustration of mine for many years. My early years were spent trying to prove that women can be effective and competent in a survival setting without having to become “one of the guys” or Rambo-esque. It took me a couple of tries before I found an organization to work for that shared this view. I spent the next 10 years working for Outward Bound, and I have loved the experience it brought. Both genders need to be able to step in and out of whatever role is needed, at any given time. I think it is a huge, possibly detrimental, mistake to get stuck in gender-driven roles.
So, one of my first pieces of advice I would give any woman is to lose the gender bias and develop an authentic “can-do” mindset. Notice I said “authentic”. Reading and gathering information isn’t it. Nor is a vacation into the wilderness. Granted, they are good starts, and you can learn a lot, but it is just that– a start. You need tons of practice in all sorts of conditions. You may have ten different ways of starting a fire, but can you start and sustain a fire after it has been raining for days? Can you set up a tarp or tent in windy and/or rainy weather? Can you navigate without electronic techno gadgets and gizmos? HoweverSo forth and so on. Go through all the different categories and ask yourself these type of questions. There have been a ton of books and articles written about all the various aspects of TEOTWAWKI and components of “surviving”, so I won’t rehash it here. I will try to provide some insight into the experience I have gained from being in survival situations and equipment my life has depended upon.
Over the years I have gleamed a lot of hands-on experience in “survival”. Sometimes I felt that I had too much experience because I saw myself becoming complacent in my abilities. A recent health “crisis” has caused me to go back and revamp a lot of my thinking in the area. Very unexpectedly, I landed in the hospital and underwent open heart surgery. I had to have an artificial mitral heart valve replacement surgery due to catching rheumatic fever in one of my bouts with strep as a child. I didn’t even know I had a heart problem until I went into heart and respiratory failure.
Fortunately, a person should be able to fully recover from this type of heart problem, but it has made me stop and rethink things. “It” can shake your sense of self confidence and cause you to reexamine your abilities. The recent health scare has taught me the importance of running all the “what if” scenarios. What if I don’t recover my previous strength, health, and abilities?
Source: http://survivalblog.com/the-mindset-and-experience-of-a-single-competent-female-prepper-by-skylar/
