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Original poster

Has anybody on here got a terrible sense of direction? And does it embarrass you?

152 replies

Wisteriabloom · 20/09/2021 19:49

Just wondering if I'm the only one, or if there are others too! Here are some examples -

If I get up from where we're sitting, in an airport, large restaurant etc to go to the loo/my turn to get the drinks etc, I have trouble finding my way back unless I literally make notes of landmarks - (ie, turn right by statue, past huge mirror, turn left by the bar etc). I now know to do this and it REALLY helps, after embarrassing experiences of panicking and being completely lost on the way back and whoever I'm with coming to look for me, incredulous that I couldn't remember the way!😳

Also, I'm not a driver and recently had some friends staying. We were going to a restaurant one evening, (it's one that dh & I have been to fairly often). But have walked or bussed there, as both non drivers.

This time our friends were driving and I was in the car trying to direct, (dh was meeting us there as had been somewhere else). There was a diversion in place and I just couldn't think of any other route to direct them, other than my 'normal route' that we now couldn't use! We got there eventually (a bit late!🤔) and I could tell my friends were a bit confused I was struggling to direct, as I'm a Local, and have lived here years!

I do have Dyspraxia btw, however i manage to hold down a responsible job, am talented in music & languages, and a great cook, but my navigation skills are embarrassingly close to zero!

Even at school I can remember it taking months before I confidently knew my way around (new secondary school) whereas my classmates, even the less academic ones had cracked it in the first week!

I can also struggle to recognise places if I'm travelling to them from another angle, ie, I can get from A to B easily, but to get from A to C I'd have to go via B, even though it takes twice as long!😳

As I've got older I've developed coping strategies, ie, noting landmarks and practising routes if I know I'll be expected to direct but it can be debilitating! Dh just can't understand it, I reckon he was born with an inbuilt SatNav! He deliberately walks behind me for amusement if we're staying in a hotel, as he knows it will easily be a couple of days before I can get from our room to Reception without making a wrong turn, so frustrating!! Just wondered if anybody else has this issue!

OP posts:

onethird · 21/09/2021 08:35

Yes, I have exactly the same problem. I do drive, but it took me many years and several different instructors. I find roundabouts particularly difficult. I desperately want to be able to take my children to more places and have more freedom but my sense of direction gets in my way.

My DH had to be admitted to hospital two hours from home late at night. I ended up stranded on the way home because my exit onto the motorway was closed. The Sat Nav kept taking me back to the same roundabout and I could not work out for myself how to get to where I needed to be.

I once got lost in my MIL's bungalow.

OldTinHat · 21/09/2021 09:04

I'm lucky and have a good sense of direction. I can automatically point out north, south and so on. My dad is the same. My mum and sister get lost all the time so maybe hereditary? I only have to go somewhere once, even hours of driving away, and I can do it again without satnav or maps. However I am rubbish with faces, I can meet someone and see them again five minutes later and not recognise them!

Curlygirl06 · 21/09/2021 09:51

All of the above! I once came out of a pub toilet, opened one of two doors and I was in the car park. My dh was waiting for me and was quite surprised when I walked up behind him after having to come back in through the main door. He couldn't understand it, two doors and I picked the wrong one!

I once had to go on a course at work and my line manager drew me the route with roundabouts and junctions marked. Dh went over it on Google maps. There was roadworks at a particular place and he said that once there DON'T turn left as it'll take you past Stonehenge and that's the wrong way. Followed the directions, all fine and dandy, came over the hill and Stonehenge was right in front of me- how? I pulled in and phoned him, he was incredulous as to how I was there and I know I'd followed the instructions (I think!) I reckon they moved Stonehenge overnight.
Anyway, I got lost, went to the wrong place, got to the course late, was very stressed and if I knew where the hell I was I'd have turned round and gone home.
If I have to go anywhere I ask for directions, as in do I turn left or right at the end of our road, none of this take the A36 and get on the B35 at the junction.
My kids don't have this issue.

spiderlight · 21/09/2021 09:57

I have found my people!! I hate it - DH and DS both have an incredible sense of direction and I just blunder round with no idea where I'm going. I hate things like big service station toilets because I've genuinely struggled to find my way out, and half the time when i do get out, nothing's where I'm expecting it to be. DH spends half his life waving at me while I stand round like a short-sighted meerkat trying to work out where I am, even in places I've been to dozens of times. I strongly suspect I'm dyspraxic as well.

Curlygirl06 · 21/09/2021 09:58

Oh and the course I went on was a "secrets" course, so bloody secret I couldn't find it!

LukeEvansWife · 21/09/2021 09:58

@Curlygirl06

Oh and the course I went on was a "secrets" course, so bloody secret I couldn't find it!

ThatSunnyCorner · 21/09/2021 10:05

I'd suggest a meet up so we could get together and talk about this and how disabling it is. None of us would find our way there though

LukeEvansWife · 21/09/2021 10:31

@ThatSunnyCorner

I'd suggest a meet up so we could get together and talk about this and how disabling it is. None of us would find our way there though

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 21/09/2021 10:31

Sorry to digress, but is anyone else’s dh like this with directions?

Despite losing some of his fantastic sense of direction after relying on satnav for years now, his is still much better than mine. However he will still insist that he knows the way somewhere, when he doesn’t.

E.g. when on an occasional visit to some relations of his who live in the depths of the countryside, the satnav just doesn’t work for the last few miles, so we have twice driven around for 20 minutes trying to find someone to ask.

Before the last couple of trips I’ve said, ‘Can you please ring X and Y to get directions for the last bit?’ (They’re very old and he knows them much better than I do.)

‘No need, I can remember it.’
Only when it came to the point, he couldn’t.
Same with other trips, so many times.

I always have to have a road map in the car, because the satnav has let us down more than once, notably once in France, when it went AWOL at a busy junction.

I now have that particular route clearly marked on the French road map.

APJ1 · 21/09/2021 10:32

Whenever I get stopped around my home area and asked for directions, I always think "Why meeee? You just picked the absolute worst person to ask"!

the80sweregreat · 21/09/2021 10:35

I hear you , I'm
The same too.

APJ1 · 21/09/2021 10:40

I can do very basic maths - ie plus, minus, times and division but that’s it. I can’t do mental maths at all, give change, work out percentages or see patterns when it comes to numbers.

Ooh, interesting! I have those issues. It makes me wonder how I managed to get a Maths GCSE! I had never considered whether it is connected to dyspraxia...or maybe we separately both have undiagnosed dyscalculia?

Boilingicicle · 21/09/2021 11:01

APJ1. You did well to get your GCSE maths. I go back to the days of CSE and Olevels . I was told not to do cse but gave it a go and got ungraded. Wrote my name answered 3questions and couldn't get any further. Ive wondered about dyspraxia too.

marriednotdead · 21/09/2021 11:11

So many people here- makes me feel a bit better! DP finds it incomprehensible how easily I get lost in places like health centres and public buildings- I use my satnav loads too. If I go into somewhere that isn't my corner shop even for a minute, I can't remember which way I came from when I leave.

You'll be pleased to know it's very real and there is actually a name for the condition-
Developmental Topographic Disorientation!

Curlygirl06 · 21/09/2021 12:28

And don't talk to me about sat navs. Dh had to go to hospital, drove himself and set the sat nav up for me to go home. Got to the first roundabout, take the 5th exit, fine. Next roundabout, take the 3rd, again fine. Next roundabout, take the 5th exit, (hmm unusual to have 2 roundabouts in a row where you take the 5th exit but hey ho). Next roundabout, take 3rd exit. Next roundabout, take the 5th exit again, by now I was doubting the sat nav. When I got to the next roundabout and it said take the 3rd exit I realized I'd been up and down the same stretch of road 3 times and hadn't bloody noticed!
Good job I'd thought that taking the 5th exit 3 times in a row was unusual, if it had been take the 4th exit I'd have been up and down that road until I ran out of petrol.
I didn't trust the sat nav after that and went rogue, ended up in some village with no one about, single track roads, bit like the Village of the Dammed. Got back vaguely to the right ish area and came to a little toll bridge thingy near Bath. I was so lost I gave them a pound, told them to keep the change as long as they could tell me how the hell to get back on the main road.
I got someone else to collect dh the following day he'd have been quicker walking home!

the80sweregreat · 21/09/2021 12:29

I'm also bad at maths too , I can't get my head around anything but the absolute basics.
I've always felt embarrassed by how bad I am at maths and I do feel it's held me back.

Curlygirl06 · 21/09/2021 12:36

@APJ1

I can do very basic maths - ie plus, minus, times and division but that’s it. I can’t do mental maths at all, give change, work out percentages or see patterns when it comes to numbers.

I have an amazing mathematical brain, sometimes I do calculations so quickly I have to go back over it slowly to make sure I've done it right, fantastic at remembering phone numbers and bank account numbers, hopeless at names. I'm also incredibly clumsy so perhaps there's a link? I also have no "mental map" so I couldn't tell you whether this town is to the left of that town and how to get from a to b without having to go back to somewhere that I know where I'm starting from. My kids laugh about it.

TreeSmuggler · 21/09/2021 13:08

Yes, me! It used to embarrass me and I'd try to pretend I knew the way, now I don't even bother with that and openly use sat nav for everything. I also go the wrong way up the street or in the shopping centre after coming out of shops.

In the show The Good Place, I watched an episode where one character gets lost on an escalator and is diagnosed with "directional insanity". I thought that's me!

spiderlight · 21/09/2021 14:46

@TreeSmuggler

In the show The Good Place, I watched an episode where one character gets lost on an escalator and is diagnosed with "directional insanity". I thought that's me!

Ha! Yes! I thought the same.

My DS, in contrast, has some sort of freakish internal compass that is almost never wrong. His party piece is to get people to name random spots he's been to, and he can tell almost instantly which way they face even if he's ony ever been there a handful of times. We verify them using Google Maps. He wants to be a pilot, so this might come in handy!!

amusedbush · 21/09/2021 16:23

Yes, my sense of direction is absolutely shocking. I can barely read a map, I can't tell left from right and I completely forget places I've been several times. I'd starve alone in a field somewhere without sat nav.

A while ago I cycled to work and was looking for the shower room in a building I didn't know (university campus). I wandered round, thought I'd found it and opened the door but realised that wasn't it. I went back round the other way, saw the SAME FUCKING DOOR and opened it without realising I'd just tried it from another direction??

I was diagnosed with dyspraxia a few weeks ago and I'm being assessed for ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia next month.

Dyspraxia is so, so misunderstood. People I've spoken to seem to think it just makes you a bit clumsy but it affects everything for me, from my gross and fine motor skills to reading comprehension, ability to understand verbal instructions, face blindness, planning and estimation, emotional regulation, sensory processing... everything I do seems to take five extra steps compared to neurotypical people

DillonPanthersTexas · 21/09/2021 16:35

I have to confess I loathe not knowing where I am am or how to get somewhere. If in a foreign city I am one of those sad bastards who will actually study the metro maps as well as establishing reference points near the hotel, parks, landmarks, rivers or stations etc. I have a pretty decent sense of direction so even if I don't know the name of the street I am on I know I am walking in the right direction.

LavenderAskew · 21/09/2021 16:35

Honestly I'm awful, if I have to take a slight diversion I just can figure out the route. I could get lost in my own bathroom if something had been moved in it.

Terrible with faces too - i can't recognise something if I see them in a different place to where I usually see them. (Though weirdly, if I see someone in several different places I do know I know them (might not recall their name mind you).)

I really struggle with spelling too, there are some words I simply cannot work out how to spell and get them so badly wrong even Google can't figure out what I mean.

I can read a map though! (However not read a map an then relay directions it to someone.)

TheTurn0fTheScrew · 21/09/2021 16:38

Yup, this is totally me. I have worked in the same hospital for 10 years, and if I go to a bit I visit less than weekly I will get lost, even if I've been there several times before. Also shit with faces, and can't watch films or TV with too many middle aged white men in (ie most telly) as I can't work out who is who.

Dozer · 21/09/2021 16:41

I have this and yes, can be embarrassing! Inherited from a parent and grandparent, who would ‘get lost on the way to the corner shop’! Sat nav is amazing but no good in doors or where there’s no battery or connectivity!

Also aphantasia (no mental images) and no verbal ‘internal dialogue’ or many sounds.

Dozer · 21/09/2021 16:41

Bad with names/faces too.

V good at plenty of other things, eg dealing with vast quantities of written material quickly. brains are weird!

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