Literally no sense of direction... at all

[Pippa12]

I’ve just had a complete melt down as my sat nav had technical difficulties and I couldn’t get it to work. I’ve done this 40 minute journey every week for 5 weeks now, but I cannot for the life of me get there and back without GPS.
I rung my husband in blind panic (again!) and although he’s calm and kind, he’s completely perplexed at my lack of directional skills and feels there is more to it.

I struggle with directions and remembering how to get to places everyday. I rely heavily on my Sat Nav for the shortest of journeys. If we are in a hotel for instance, it will take a good few days before I can confidently get to reception/pool or navigate round the resort. I am otherwise fairly clever and together person with a technical job in a managerial position with lots to organise and execute, but why oh why can’t I get from A to B without assistance.

Anybody else have similar experiences and any ideas how to improve this after 37 years of bloody embarrassment and torment!

I don’t have a terrible sense of direction but I do have a massive fear of driving on roads I don’t know, especially urban ones. So like you, I rely heavily on my satnav. What I do every time before a new journey is to ‘drive’ it on google streetview. Like all of it- every roundabout, traffic lights, junction etc. And I take note of the landmarks, street names or shop names at junctions where I need to turn or be in a certain lane, so turn right at the Chinese takeaway with a red door. That sort of thing. It works well for me.

I’d have a terrible sense of direction too I think if I had to rely on a sat nav, it’s such a narrow snapshot of a journey and doesn’t show anything but the immediate road ahead. There’s no context, no anchor. Just follow instructions. It’s like playing a driving game on a console then being set a task to draw the circuit from memory. Really hard.

I literally have a wall covered by a huge road map of the city in my study, and the other wall is a map of the world. Once you can see how everywhere relates to everywhere else, and you get a sense of yourself in the space, and know how you relate to it, and can internalise that, I think that helps.

If it’s anything like prosopagnosia, there’s no way to make your brain do it, but lots of tricks (like taking photos of parking spaces) to manage it. I don’t recognise my team at work until they’ve said hello and their name and I’ve clocked what they’re wearing that day - I just have ways of working around it.

Oh yes, I am absolutely like this and am glad I am not alone. I have a friend that I have known for almost 30 years and I still can't quite remember how to get to her house! In my defence she lives in one of those vast estates where all the streets look the same, but you'd think that after 30 years it would have started to sink in!!

This is me I hold down a senior management job with a lot of responsibility. When it comes to directions it's like a blank spot in my brain. I just can't find places as OP said I have got lost on my way home from work .
I have no mental map no sense of direction . I have tried to improve and the landmark thing has helped a bit .
It's like direction me is a different person !!

Me too . It’s why I hate driving . I am the same in hospitals as well . Get lost whereas my OH a an find his way around easily .

It took me years to realise that why I hate driving anywhere new .

I am also generally quite unobservant in life so I think part of my issue is that I don't notice landmarks. So my DH will comment on a lovely house/nice looking restaurant we've just passed, and I'll be completely oblivious. I once went to see a play where a live donkey was brought onto the stage. Afterwards everyone was talking about how they had managed it backstage and I had no clue what they were on about!!

If you are outdoors or in a car, ringing someone on a smart phone, you can’t be lost. It’s a GPS. It can pin your location down to a couple of metres.

When I'm going somewhere unfamiliar I always do a dry run by 'travelling' to the place I'm going on Google Street View first - and I make a note of any landmarks on the way.

I'm the same, same 50 min journey roughly monthly for 12 years (DH doing most of the driving usually TBF) and I still need to double check regularly.

No advice but I'm the same. I just figure I have other skills but direction isn't one of them!

Same here - no sense of direction at all! I get lost in shopping centres / car parks etc every time.
My DH just has to look at a toad and say oh yes that's North etc

@notonmute I'm also terrible with faces! Specifically if I see people out of context, I find it impossible to place them. Eg someone from work in a shop, takes a few seconds to work out that I know them and then a few more to work out how and who they are.

I'm the same, sadly I can't really say I've developed many tactics to deal with it beyond forcing myself to turn off the satnav after I've done it a few times to make myself learn the route better. Otherwise it can take me 10+ times of doing the same journey.

I also get lost in hotels, new buildings etc. very easily. I think the tip someone gave of very consciously registering 'landmarks' along the way e.g. fire extinguishers is a good one.

I have a hopeless sense of direction but I can manage as long as there are words on buildings etc to guide me. Out in nature with just trees etc, I completely panic.

Oh yes. I can't use Sat Nav though as it barks things at me like "turn left" and.....guess what? Did you mean the other left?

I went the wrong way in my driving test (he said turn left, I went right, or the other way round maybe) - but still passed as I did the wrong direction safely, apparently.

I do what others have already suggested and run through on Google streetview first. I find that really helpful. I also take a printed out map if I'm going somewhere new, so I can stop and refer to it if necessary.

If husband / children are navigating and I'm driving, they know to give me plenty of notice and actually point the direction rather than this vague "left" nonsense.

Not just you. I also forget routes easily. After maternity leave I had to use my sat nav for a good few weeks to do a journey of 40mins that I had done for three years before having the baby.

Are you me OP? I got lost in a shopping centre recently - took me ages to find my way out.

On a more serious note, I've never had a good sense of direction. I manage to get lost using google maps - any direction that starts "go north" leaves me in a muddle since I've no idea which way "North" is to start with. However much I rotate things it makes no sense. As for those hedge mazes I can't go in them - DP has to take the children as I get panic attacks just thinking about them - I got lost in one on a school trip when I was about 10 and got into so much trouble on top of being pretty paniced already :(

I'm dsypraxic and the general consensus is that its a symptom of that Its rubbish

I'm the same. My sense of direction is dreadful and always has been. I can get lost in the town I grew up in! I didn't have sat nav when I first started driving so obviously couldn't rely on that.

When I used to make the long drive from uni to home (once a term), I used to write down the main road numbers/where they were heading to and stick it to my dashboard to help me

I also learnt some key landmarks e.g. turn left at the unusual house etc.

Once I have learnt the way somewhere, I can go that way only. Nothing worse than folk going 'oh but you could go xyz way' because that then disrupts my carefully stored instructions.

I am educated to post graduate level and hold a responsible job so it's not that I'm totally dense.
I am dyslexic though and I think that has a lot to do with it.

I always swear by a trail of crumbs, although obviously today I'm in completely the wrong town looking in confusion at a huge pile of crumb drift from the wind.
Advice please, many thanks.

I am the same OP, so is my Mum. I sometimes think people think I am joking as I just really have no idea of directions. If I go somewhere I never know the way back. Like others have said landmarks help. I also do 'trial runs' if I have to go to a new place so I can write down directions while DH drives.

Department stores are a nightmare, particularly if they don't have windows. I get looking at clothes or something then want to leave and I can't see any lifts/stairs/exits.

And I'd be rubbish as a member of the Famous Five going through those smugglers caves and tunnels. I'd die in there if it weren't for Timmy and my bits of string and chalk. Always made me anxious reading those.

I am the same - am diagnosed dyspraxic.

I'm exactly the same. Academically clever, in a good job, can remember useless things from years ago. Yet if I go to the loo in a restaurant, 9 times out of 10 I will come out and turn the wrong way. I have no sense of direction whatsoever. If I approach a familiar roundabout from a different exit to normal it takes me ages to compute that it's the same roundabout. Totally reliant on my sat nav/Google maps and I don't envisage this changing tbh. It's terrible though, I genuinely get embarrassed at how awful I am with navigation. DH thinks it's funny but occasionally is in disbelief at how bad it is to the point where he's convinced I'm making it up. I'm not!

Another one here too. I have found my people! I have dozens of examples of getting lost even indoors - in hotels, getting lost inside offices whenever I start a new job etc.

The blue dot on the phone map is my saviour.

Landmarking does help massively though. When I park my car and head away from it I turn and try to memorise how it’s position will look when I’m returning to it. Taking a pic of the location in a car park helps.

I do find if I’m in an unfamiliar place alone and I make a huge effort to place myself in the location and carefully check the map it will sink in. Conversely if I’m with someone and distracted / chatting, the location skills totally fall apart.