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

[Wisteriabloom]

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!

I have ADHD diagnosis and am so bad at this. Have to do the landmarks thing OP mentions in airports etc. I always thought it was because I didn't drive so wasn't focused on the route but over the years I've realised that I just can't do it. I've lived in London all my life but I experience it as a very large series of tiny villages with chaos in between.

Also bad with faces and names, and definitely getting worse. I nave a note on my phone of the people in the streets' names + kids + dogs.

Yes, I can be quite bad unless I really focus on it. I do things like open the cupboard door instead of the exit and get lost coming out of the toilets I've just gone into.

Interesting about whether people have a diagnosis. I’m autistic

I'm dreadful with faces too. I drive DH nuts if we're watching a film or TV programe in which it's not really obvious who everyone is. I try so hard but there's still a stream of 'Is that the politician? Is that the one who was just talking to the guy in the lift?' I will never live down the time I turned to him, at least an hour into a film, all pleased with myself, and said 'I've seen him in something before!' and it was Robert de Niro

It's worse if I see someone even slightly out of context, as well. I was behind a guy in the queue at our local Co-Op a while back and I was convinced he was someone I'd seen on TV (not entirely unlikely, as we live not far from some BBC studios). I was trying to mouth 'What's he been in?' to DH for ages, while he looked blankly at me, before I eventually realised he was the guy who drove the bus I used to get to see my dad when DH was at work (you will be relieved to know that I no longer drive!)

I can get lost in my own house. I don't have any natural sense of direction or memory for places that I don't visit often, I rely on landmarks to find my way and am making a list of things to look out for eg on my way back to the railway station.

Yep, fucking awful sense of direction.

I have to use sat nav a lot for the time for journeys i should really know the way.

If I go into a shop I will often walk out of the shop and turn the wrong way and then think oh there was a WHSmiths back the other way before I realise I have doubled back.

But I don't get embarrassed by it. I find it kind of funny.

@APJ1

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"!

Last time I was stopped for directions my DS, who was about 5 at the time, yelled at them: “get a sat nab”

That's brilliant, RandomWord!🤣

Such fascinating responses here! I'm surprised by how many of us there are, and according to one poster there's actually a name for our condition - I'll look it up!

In my experience, it's only been the last 10 years or so (I'm nearly 50), that I've understood my problem, and developed coping strategies (like making notes of landmarks, taking a photo of the area I'm due to meet people in) in case I can't remember the way back etc. I wish I'd started doing this much earlier as it really does help!

Tbh if I'm going somewhere that's an unfamiliar route and I'm up against time I'm very rarely late, but that's because I've prepared and practised the route beforehand, (and left extra time)!

My problem comes if I'm in someone's car and expected to direct the driver. I often DO know where it is, but only the walking or bus route. I've got NO idea in a car - one-way systems, dual carriageways etc, and everything looking different coming from a different angle. This totally baffles the driver, especially if they know I'm a local and have lived here years, but I really struggle, to an embarrassing degree!

I love the idea of a meet-up and WhatsApping from all the ridiculous places we all ended up. The one who got nearest the designated destination could get a prize (maybe something such as a box of flares to use whenever we need to send out an SOS ).

The other thing I find is even if I’ve found somewhere before, if I don’t go there again for a few months I’ve totally forgotten which roads are involved and even which direction I need to set off in once i leave our streetß. It’s like I’m doing it for the very first time all over again. Does anyone else have this?

Oh it could be like a treasure hunt

@Boilingicicle

I love the idea of a meet-up and WhatsApping from all the ridiculous places we all ended up. The one who got nearest the designated destination could get a prize (maybe something such as a box of flares to use whenever we need to send out an SOS ).

The other thing I find is even if I’ve found somewhere before, if I don’t go there again for a few months I’ve totally forgotten which roads are involved and even which direction I need to set off in once i leave our streetß. It’s like I’m doing it for the very first time all over again. Does anyone else have this?

All the time. Even if I go somewhere every day, it takes several weeks for me to remember the route.

Before the days of satnav, I MAY have moved into a house about 5-10 mins walk away from work and had to draw part of the street map on the back of my hand so I could find the office m and have to follow it backwards in the evening.

still took half an hour to get home though

I've got an awful sense of direction, I find it really hard to work out how to get from A to B and if there's a road closure I get completely lost.

Google maps is my friend!!

What's hilarious is I work in the community and drive to different homes/locations all day!!

Girliefriend. Working in the community sounds so stressful minus a sense of direction. I used do supply work but the phone ringing with someone telling me the name of a medically centre in some unknown part of the city was a nightmare. I’d arrive already exhausted just from the sheer effort and anxiety of getting there. By the time I’d done a days work, tackled the nightmare journey in reverse, I was a wrung out wreck. I didn’t last long before I stopped supply and opted for a job in the same place each day.

I have found my people. My children say I am 'geographically challenged'. My ability to get lost is incredible.

Look! www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(13)70133-9/fulltext It’s a proper thing! There’s even a documentary about it. Wanna see if there’s a way to watch it. Thanks to PP who have it a name.

@PheonixGlitterRepublic

Yes! It’s so bad it’s really embarrassing and I really can’t function like a normal person when it comes to finding my way anywhere. I even get lost in certain parts of my office. I am very intelligent and have a professional job, there’s just a bit of my brain that is missing. I refuse to feel embarrassed though and just own it, I feel like it’s some form of disability and don’t see why I should feel bad about it.

Same here. Although I am not 'very intelligent'.

Mine is awful and it upsets me more than embarrasses me. Most people think it's quite funny, but I often feel panicky because I can't figure simple directions out.

The amount of times I get lost in places I have spent hours in is ridiculous. Or maybe not lost, but I go in the wrong direction and end up somewhere else.

I started to walk in the wrong direction last night to exit the pub, the pub I go in every week. My friends had to point the way!

I also have a terrible sense of direction. I get lost coming home from places I've been to hundreds of times and end up in random towns or cities, much to the hilarity of my friends and family. I just forget junctions, don't remember whether I've gone left or right and don't recognise landmarks. I can read a map though.

So glad it isn’t just me. If I walk along a road from a different direction I can get disoriented easily and it seems like the road is ‘back to front’ . The first time I noticed was at school when the corridor seemed the ‘wrong way around’, the rooms on the left should have been in the right in my head.

This strikes a very loud chord with me! I’m autistic, and although an excellent map reader, I have zero sense of direction in real life. When I was a medical student, I used to jokingly accuse my DH of moving the campus buildings around, as I couldn’t find my way from one to the other.
And I regularly roamed the corridors of my massive rambling teaching hospital, where every floor looked the same, and none of the seven storey research block was internally signposted, trying to find the lab I should be in.
I am also face blind, and have walked past my own DDs in the street, when they were standing 20 yards away from our agreed meeting place.
Satnavs make things easier nowadays. I used to write down each road and junction I needed from the map, before setting off on any trip of over 200 miles. My late DH could just point the car and drive.

@GTAlogic

I also have a terrible sense of direction. I get lost coming home from places I've been to hundreds of times and end up in random towns or cities, much to the hilarity of my friends and family. I just forget junctions, don't remember whether I've gone left or right and don't recognise landmarks. I can read a map though.

I can read a map and if I'm not driving I can tell people where to go from the map. However, if I'm driving and stop to look at the map, by the time I've got going again the information has gone. One of the things I've done if I'm lost is head for somewhere I've heard of. That didn't work when the only place I'd heard of on the sign in front of me said London! I hasten to add I didn't end up in London.

@SwanShaped - here's the documentary:

player.vimeo.com/video/117952222

Thanks for that link - really interesting! I'm glad I've got a name for it. Going to watch the documentary later.

Me! There's something missing in my brain. I could get lost 1 minute from my house. I have a post-graduate qualification but can't remember left from right. Im also very clumsy.

My husband does exactly the same when we are in hotels. He just doesn’t get it. I couldn’t use a sat nav to save myself. I do drive but just locally. If there is a diversion I get completely lost. I once followed someone when there was a diversion as they looked like they knew where they were going. Followed them for a mile or so and then they indicated to park on their drive. That was me knackered

Thanks @spiderlight. I only got a short trailer. Looked good tho! I’ve seen that it’s only a 10 mins short doc. Would still love to see it.