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!

@thelegohooverer
Do you remember that you have already been in eg. Waterstones? Does that not remind you if you do turn the wrong way?

Me, a human being with no discernible navigation abilities at all, trying to get tips from someone with a fantastic sense of direction who has all these great techniques that just work when they do them, is a bit like me, a once-hyperlexic who thinks in text, trying to give tips to someone with severe dyslexia. It's just not gonna work

@Scarby9 that’s how I’d know I was going the wrong way. But that instinct to turn the wrong way is hard wired in!

A certain amount of it, for me, is not paying attention, and that’s the bit I can do something about. But being able to visualise images and carry a map in my head is well beyond me. The fact that in a 50:50 situation I’m not getting it right 50% of the time suggests that there’s some kind of instinct at play.

@FrankensteinIsTheMonster

Me, a human being with no discernible navigation abilities at all, trying to get tips from someone with a fantastic sense of direction who has all these great techniques that just work when they do them, is a bit like me, a once-hyperlexic who thinks in text, trying to give tips to someone with severe dyslexia. It's just not gonna work

But it does confirm that you do absorb/disseminate information in a completely different way - which is what I wondered - and probably explains exactly why it's so difficult for some people to find their way around.

So it's not an absence of ability as much as it's a difference in processing information. Nobody needs to feel like they're a bit thick (I paraphrase slightly), nobody feels they're superior (I certainly don't when I'm faced with huge blocks of text and die a little inside because I've got to painstakingly go through it to extract the useful information from a wall of waffle, as I see it, when somebody else gets it immediately).

Your comments make it easier for somebody like me to give somebody like you directions that you will understand and be able to follow - I have to convert my super-duper 3D overlays into words. Very, very detailed words.

I think that's a pretty useful outcome from the thread, really?

Agree completely MoonCup! It's been an interesting and useful thread.

I'm just trying to convey, somehow, what I'm in willing to bet a fair few people with difficulties like mine have experienced, which is people who are great at this stuff Just Not Getting that there's some kind of… fundamental difference that means that very often, the tips that work great for others don't seem to translate, and it's not for lack of trying

*what I'm in willing to bet

I'm hopeless too. I get lost in buildings so will avoid using toilets in big places such as airports in case I can't find DH again! Also weirdly I consider north to always be straight ahead no matter where I'm facing. Obviously I know it's not but I can't picture it being anywhere else!!!

I sympathise as I can get lost in the local park. I love driving, but I only drive where I am familiar with the local area...For example, I could not drive to Brent X. I have been driven there dozens of times, but I could not do this on my own; I just don't seem to take anything in. When my boss said I would need to drive from Bushey to Potters Bar to drop off documents, I nearly died. I got my partner to sit with me so I could do a dummy run, 3 dummy runs later, I still could not grasp it. I ended up shouting at my partner, who was annoyed with me for not reading the signs. I wanted to throw him out of the car, but I didn't dare as I would never get back home. On the day I had to drive to Potters Bar, I phoned in sick. When I returned to work the next day, one of the girls said she had to go to Potters Bar and said, "It's a lovely little drive there. Yeah right!

I’m no good with directions and I don’t drive now as I find too stressful even if I know where I’m going with a sat nav ( when I did drive) I’ve been lost so many times it’s embarrassing really. I feel like a lost cause myself most of the time!

This is a zombie thread ! ..

I have it too. I used to have to do a physical recce before going somewhere unfamiliar and take note of the names of pubs and buildings. I had one job that involved driving to several different venues. I went to the wrong one more than once.

DH will say things like ‘You need to be on the A243’. That means nothing to me. I need road names, not numbers.

I get lost coming out of toilets in hotels and restaurants too. I couldn’t find my way round one school I worked, for ages. Had to style it out in front of the teenagers.

I still have no sense of direction though. I don't think it grows back.

I've got a really good sense of direction (unless I'm in Leeds) but my DH's is terrible. He absolutely relies on sat nav in the car, which is ok until he gets to a new road or roundabout that's not on his sat nav software yet, then it all goes to shit. He'll blindly follow the sat nav instead of reading the road signs.

Suggest Google Maps on your phone and a good old AA map in the car.

OP, I'm with you.

I have the sense of direction of an autumn leaf. Every journey I make is a new and exciting adventure. I'm constantly amazed. "Ooh! Look! How did we get here?"

This is a syndrome of some sort. I can't hold a 3D map of the world in my head. Also, with an actual map, I can only travel up it. Can't do down - so I'm incapable of going south, and east and west are very challenging. It doesn't help that I can't tell left from right. When my elder daughter's in the car, she has to say 'Next road your side.' She's good at directions. My younger daughter, like me, is hopeless.

I should add that I'm not ND, as far as I know, and there are things that I'm really good at that would indicate that I'm not stupid either. I just have difficulty with three-dimensional space.