Anyone else here got no sense of direction?

[Blessedbethefrootloops]

I suddenly realised today that I have absolutely no sense of direction. I always knew, but I don’t think I realised how bad it was.

Today dh and I had to take ds to an event. It’s at a venue we’ve been to several times before. We parked a 5 minute walk from the venue on the road. Dh went on ahead with ds as I waited in the car for 5 minutes to do my hair/make up.

When I got out of the car to walk to the venue I realised that I had no idea of the way. I set my phone up on Google maps and started walking but I was going in the completely wrong direction. I could hear noise coming from the venue and I got so confused. It was raining and I was carrying some equipment and I ended up just going back to the car and crying. Dh ended up coming back to
the car to meet me.

I can’t read Google maps when I’m walking. Sounds pathetic but I just can’t do it.

I go to a hairdressers every 6 months and have to park in an unfamiliar town (although I have been to
this town many times) so it shouldn’t really be unfamiliar. I get lost on the 3 minute walk from the car park to the hairdressers. Every single time. So I have to allow extra time.

It’s so embarrassing being an adult and wandering around lost.

I get lost in my office at work if I have to go to a different part of the building and I’ve worked there for years.

I get lost going to the toilet in places and can’t find my way back to where I was.

If I have to go anywhere I pray that there’ll be people I can follow. I do try to read maps but I get it wrong when it comes to putting it into reality.

I’ve been like this since school, I never learnt to find my way around school.

If I go somewhere every day then obviously eventually I learn the way. I don’t get lost going to work/school run/local shops. But I seems to take me a very long time to learn the way. For example there are shops near my ds school and I have to use the satnav even though I’ve been there loads of times.

I sympathise OP, I'm the same. I find it incredibly occult to build up a picture of an area in my mind. We've lived in our current house for four years and whole I've learned the main routes I take every day, I have no idea how they all join up and how the overall roads all connect together. I can drive from my house to the supermarket or to my son's nursery, but to get from my son's nursery to the supermarket I'd need Satnav even though it's lots of the same roads.

I also would need to take a couple of minutes to work out which way is north / south / east / west, I have absolutely no instinct or innate sense of it.

I find it very hard to follow maps or directions.

I think my issues might be connected to my ADHD but who knows, it might be an unrelated affliction!

I meant to say difficult not occult but honestly people having a good innate sense of direction feels occult to me so perhaps that's appropriate 😅

I haven't, I used to dread a new job, not because of the work but having to find my way around and stuff like that. I am likely to get lost coming back from the toilet. When we go out for a walk in the countryside, even if I have been several times before, I hang back at gates and forks in the path to let DH go first in case I go wrong

I’m exactly the same. I was diagnosed with dyspraxia as an adult. I am probably ND in other ways as well as being hyper mobile/EDS.

Yes, mine is shit. Like a toddler on Skittles.

I am the same and it gets worse when I am stressed but it is a symptom of my dyscalculia.

you should speak to a specialist to see if there is more going on

Same here. I have to go to a place lots and lots of times before I remember the way. I'm bad at reversing directions for a return journey and I'm terrible at giving directions, even to places I do know the way to. I also have a tendency to turn the wrong way up/down the street when I come out of a shop.

With me I think it's partly poor visual/spatial awareness and partly that my brain seems to be bad at sequencing things. My sequential memory of events is also really bad. I have a really, really good memory for anything in words, but not for anything else!

Me. I'm dreadful. I struggle with lefts and rights too much. I can read a map with ease, but can't follow it on the ground

Yes, I’m dyslexic. It is frustrating.

I'm terrible with this on holiday. Will walk the wrong way every day to the buffet or restaurant. Weirdly have no issue getting to the bar 😂

I struggle with maps. I get along far better with written/text directions!

I do all of that. Have no ability to see pictures and am dyspraxic and somehow very directionally stoopid. But you can use Google maps. Once you realise you just have to walk and see if your dot is going the right up the blue line or away from it and you have a few goes somewhere with a signal then it helps. Yesterday , I left a restaurant through a door to the outside that didn’t re open. I was trying to get back to my table after going to the toilet. They watched me cross the room and walk upstairs to reappear from behind them after I came back in the main door.

Dint feel bad. Just keep increasing your strategies and be kind to yourself. It doesn’t bother me any more!

I’ve a terrible sense of direction too.
I can sympathize

I am similar. I always get lost in hotels and can’t remember which way to turn. It’s frustrating and embarrassing!

Omg. I’ve found my people.

Yep, that’s something I’d do.

I’ve tried with google maps. I think it doesn’t help that I panic. I’m better at using it while driving. Perhaps I should practice using it places I know.

I'm the same. When using Google maps I can't seem to get the dot to go in the right direction no matter what I do, I just seem to make the wrong decision at every turn and find it incredibly stressful. And when I moved offices it took me forever to learn the way to the toilet. I'm not sure why, I don't have major difficulties in any other areas but my sense of direction is dire. Sorry I can't help further but I sympathise!

I have exactly the same problem. I have to take DS1 to a hospital appointment this week at a hospital I have not been to for years. I am so worried about getting lost on the way, and in the hospital. My boy needs me to be in control and helping him. I am so worried I will let him down and make everything harder by being pants.

In the days before satnavs/Google maps, I would get hopelessly lost trying to get somewhere if there was a road closure on my usual route. I would end up miles away and it would take me ages to reach home. I used to think, if something terrible had happened to me on the way home, that my family would say "but what on earth was she doing there?!"

I was ok-ish with a sense of direction when I was younger, but everything changed when I got clinical depression. I started having panic attacks when out, and it buggered up any sense of direction I once had. Although it's been a long time since I had depression, my sense of direction never came back. I wonder how common this is.

Yes. Whenever I park or have to return to somewhere I save a what3words location.

If I visit a supplier’s office for a meeting, I daren’t leave the room to go to the toilets because I won’t be able to find my way back.

It’s quite debilitating but I have lots of ways to live with it. Thank god for Google maps. I’m so so grateful that my children don’t seem to have inherited it.

Mine's not good at all and it definitely gets worse if I'm stressed. I've developed a couple of strategies to help manage it.

I message myself a location pin in WhatsApp if I'm leaving the car anywhere, or have to get back to a particular place

I have quite a good visual memory so I will often use Google streetview if I know I'm going to be walking an unfamiliar route so I can see it beforehand.

I look behind myself every so often in case I need to retrace my steps.

And because I know I do this kind of thing (turning the wrong way when leaving shops is very familiar to me) I have learned to stop the second I'm not sure rather than pressing on regardless.

I ask for directions a lot!

I'm so glad to read of others who struggle in the same way I do!! I don't have dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, and I think I'm quite good at packing a fridge or the boot of a car, but it's like the part of my brain that handles sense of direction is just completely missing. It's embarrassing but you do have to just own it, and use the tools at your disposal, and be able to ask for help! I once had to ask a stranger for help getting back from the shops to my own mum's house because my phone had died. Granted it was a new house, but the town was the same one I'd grown up in. I had to pretend I was not local...

I have walked into another cubicle in the loos because I've gone the wrong direction to get out.
I also can't walk using Google maps.

I use the satnav in the car for almost every journey and will panic if I can't get signal before I have to set off

I have given into it and follow other people like a sheep

I am exactly the same. I dread going to new buildings because I find it really difficult to translate a floor plan into directions. When I look at a map I can’t work out where I am in relation to it, and what direction I need to go in. I’m also quite bad with spatial awareness generally. Very frustrating.