No direction sense... anyone else this bad and why??

[fastandthecurious1]

I've had this as far back as I can remember and frankly I'm tired of making excuses and laughing it off... I honest have zero direction sense while walking or driving I know many people say this but I am sure it's not this bad for everyone.

I have to google map my way around my city even the half I'm extremely familiar with in term if family living there etc... I'm great with house numbers and street names but you try and get me a landmark or to remember a layout and I simply don't it's all blank and it becomes guess work.

Indoors is the same I can't tell you how many times in new jobs I go to the toilet or to another area abs I can't find my way back with maybe only 2/3 turns. I've become very good at covering this so only really my husband knows the extent of it... he has very patiently tried to help and he is so naturally gifted with direction but it's impossible I still google map my way to my town centre as I sometime take wrong roads and multi story car parks... my goodness I take sneaky photos to help me if I'm alone and still takes 3/4 times to get any kind of bearings.

I could go on but I'm hoping I'm being clear... anyway else came across this level of issue?

I'll add I don't struggle with any other areas at all..

See London really confuses me. I know the city fairly well but I struggle where everything is related to each other because you go down into the tube in one place and pop up in another. So what direction you're going in or what has passed above ground I found really disorienting

I'm exactly the same
When I first moved, I had to ask a stranger where my address was
I'm always lost in shops too and struggle to find exits
I'm 58 and I'm sure it's got worse with age!( I haven't got dementia!)

Recently I went to one of those all you can eat buffets, I joined the queue got my food then had no idea how to find my table, I was panicking, it took ages to find them!

I can find my way and remember how to get places…eventually. 🤣 It takes me several repetitions of the same journey, on my own. I have a job following spoken directions as it feels like the long way round in my brain; I never remember the way if I’m following anyone or with someone else doing the driving. And if someone’s talking to me I instantly lose track of where I am.

I think in my case it’s a concentration thing. I am also hearing impaired so listening takes up a lot more of my attention than most people’s.

I am the worst. When I come out of a shop
in a familiar shopping centre, I do not know which direction I came in from to continue walking. When people talk about journeys or directions I glaze over because it’s all too much for me. People think I’m exaggerating as a cute quirk but I find it quite upsetting sometimes that I’m so clueless, even when I try my best.

I'm bad with directions, can still get lost if I try a different route home from the nearest town. Despite having lived here for over 30 years.
Made my stint as a postie very short-lived. And I apologise to anyone that got mail for the wrong street.

This is me too. I can't go anywhere without a sat nav and I travel for work which I struggled with badly before Google maps!

Yeah this is me.
I drive to work with my sat nav on every day just in case I accidentally take a wrong turning. I have been known to get lost on a straight path and will go into a shop and come back out and walk back the way I came (if I manage to come out the right exit).

I’ve developed a lot of coping strategies through the years but will sometimes absolutely panic if they fail me unexpectedly and I’m under pressure. E.g my husband disappeared on the ferry recently (he thought I was following him) and I didn’t know how to find our car. I managed it in time for driving off but it was a horrible feeling.

lol nonakedjacuzzi- I get the theory but what I meant was I can’t tell which shape is the L shape they both look like Ls… then there is remembering which way to face the hands. Right now it makes sense but it doesn’t stick and those Ls all look plausible!

Yes, me! I also have no spatial awareness, terrible at parking etc.

I think I might be slightly neurodivergent, maybe a touch of dyspraxia or ADHD. My DH has ADHD and my DS is on the pathway for assessment. I also really struggle with numbers.

Did you also struggle as a child with getting some of your letters and numbers backwards?

I remember that was a big thing for me but was otherwise really ahead with reading and schoolwork etc

Yes, this is me...in fact I get genuinely stressed if I'm somewhere unfamiliar (eg. different country) and don't know where North is!!)

I'm fascinated by this thread, I've no idea that so many people can't work out direction etc, I'd always assumed that everyone was like me , presumably because it's never come up in a conversation with anyone.

Mind blown!!

Me, I've literally walked down a street, stopped in a shop and not been able to work out which way I was walking when I came out. I am autistic though.

Anyone else had the cold feeling of dread when someone stops you to ask for directions?! I'm never quick enough to lie and say I'm not from around here, and as I struggle to tell them how to get somewhere I can see them glazing over and thinking I'm an idiot.

I'm an incredibly anxious driver (the sort that Mumsnet would say shouldn't be driving if I can't go to new places without panicking) and this thread has made me realise it's not the driving I'm afraid of, it's getting hopelessly lost.

That 'genuinely stressed' feeling is me all the time it's exhausting.

I really struggle. I can't visualise, mum and brother also had/have no ability to visualise.

DH is still askance at this, despite being together 20 years he cannot comprehend it.

Until a couple of years ago my aural memory was amazing. I could recall conversations verbatim from childhood. My memories function from that. Thyroid and perimenopause have hammered that though

Trisolaris - struggled to read and write when young and sometimes still reverse a letter or number. No real reason to think I am dyslexic though as am a fast reader with excellent comprehension and have good writing skills. My sister is though and I know it runs in families - she is pretty rubbish at directions but not quite so bad as me!

Am sorry it’s stressful for some - I fee quite relaxed about it and follow that blue line in the sat nav happily. It’s just a difference; if others don’t get it then sod them. It’s a bit like the mumsnet hatred for the late. No I didn’t think my time was more important but I did get on the wrong motorway then have to turn round before getting stuck on the one way loop because the car park ‘moved’.

@TwistandSprout

Ha, so similar! My brother is dyslexic but I’m a very fast reader with excellent comprehension too. I really struggled with the number/letter thing at school and also getting the punched holes on the right side of the paper (got yelled at by the teacher for this more than once), they couldn’t understand how I could be really intelligent in all my tests but made these mistakes and wrote it off as me being careless.

Me, I'm dyspraxic.

My late grandmother, much missed. Would not come to visit me during the years I lived outside London unless one other member of the family came too, because of it. Loved visiting though and I am so glad she was able to and all the time I was able to spend with her as a result.

Me, I could get lost in my own house I swear. I visit homes in the community for work and without google maps I’d never find them even if I’ve been ten times before. Before google maps I used to take an A-Z everywhere with me.

I could have written exactly this. It's a standing joke how bad my husbands sense of direction is where I can go somewhere once & know where I'm going if we go again, what's even more funny is that 6 months ago he decided he wanted to be a bus driver, my family thought it was the funniest thing ever & when he's driving a bus they are not allowed to use Google maps or satnavs!!

Yeah I’m like this.
I use Google maps all the time - even when going to a place I’ve been a few times.
Even when I was in the army, I found map reading and navigation lessons during basic training by far the hardest part. And even after passing that, I found it really hard! My colleagues quickly learned not to trust me with the map 🤦🏻‍♀️😂

That’s funny Trisolaris! Are you a speed reader naturally? I can do whole pages in seconds if I concentrate and my average speed is very fast. I wonder if it connected to learning a bit later … dunno. I understand about the paper as that would be very me too.

I am not joking when I say this, there are occasions where I still can’t get a hairbrush to my own head when I’m looking in a mirror! I don’t know what it is with directions but I remember many years ago in high school I had no clue where my next class was located, after months of being in it! google maps was life changing for me but still, I have no idea why it’s so bad!