One of the toughest steps a survivor has to take is to discard the hope of rescue, just as he discards the old world he left behind and accepts the new one. There is no other way for his brain to settle down. Although that idea seems paradoxical, it is essential. I know that’s what my father did in the Nazi prison camp: He made it his world. Dougal Robertson, who was cast away at sea for thirty-eight days, advised thinking of it this way: “Rescue will come as a welcome interruption of…the survival voyage.”
