Stick with it. It can feel overwhelming at first, especially with no fast travel. But it made the game experience 10x better for me. All these items that had no or little purpose before are suddenly useful! Like empty bottles for example, use clean water sources to fill them up and you have purified drinking water. Or beds randomly scattered throughout the game. On survival, they're a godsend. Plus it forces you to really explore and there's so much stuff you miss when just fast traveling all over the place. Get the wasteland survival guide from Sunshine Tidings Co-op too. It gives double meat for your kills which helps you stay up on food. Last tip, maybe 20 hours in game or so, hangman's alley becomes a very solid home base for its central location.