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 have this problem and was recently wondering what I could do about it

I find Google Maps makes it worse. They never makes sense. If I look at a map in advance, I'm fine. But if I am in a big hotel for example, I will always go the wrong way for the lift or the lobby or whatever.

I never know which way is north etc

Is there any way to improve this? I would like to start going hiking but this is one of the things that puts me off. At the moment I can't go on a nice woodland walk that isn't signposted. It seems a bit ridiculous.

oh, and I bought a Compass and that's not helping me much either

Not at all. I have a photographic memory. I’d never get lost.
Mum can’t remember where anything is, walking or driving.
She’s always been the same, and we’ve always lived here.

Gosh. This is me! I really have absolutely no sense of direction. I could never find my way around school and also placements when I started college. Struggle with driving anywhere outside my home town as I just haven't got a clue where I'm going.

Recently went to an outdoor concert and stressed so much about going to the loo and finding my way back again.
I really thought I was the only one who this affected!

My husband. Often turns the wrong way going out of our own street and we've lived here nearly 20 years!
Like others have mentioned he might eventually learn set routes but he can't join the two together. We had dropped our daughter somewhere new that we used sat nav to find and then were rushing to see if we could get to a group we attend regularly. He sailed past the junction I assumed he would take which is very close to the venue and instead went to 'our' junction near to our house and drove from there. We missed the group. Infuriating!

I have no sense of direction at all and it is a standing joke. If I go somewhere where all the corridors look the same and the doors are all the same I will probably be there for hours until I can either find an exit sign or someone to tell me the way out. I know 3 different routes to work but cannot for the life of me work out how the roads join up and if there is a road closed or a diversion on my usual route somewhere, it sends me into a panic. Sat navs do not work for me, I need to "see" where I am going so often spend ages following the route on google maps (I never travel far outside of home and work). I need landmarks to find my way to and from somewhere and often if I turn into a road I can never work out which way I should turn when I am leaving. Sounds ridiculous, but actually it is very real and quite scary. I once used a sat nav to visit a friend, it had a hissy fit on the way home and told me that my route had a toll road which it did not. It took me 30 minutes to get there and 1 1/2 hours to get home because the sat nav said one direction and the road signs said another. I would much rather be a passenger or use public transport. If you told me to get to Florida using public transport, trains, planes etc I could do that, but if you ask me to drive around my nearest city, I would flatly refuse. I get lost in hotels, pubs, restaurants and needed landmarks to find my tent at a festival, which was fine until the landmark disappeared.

All of the above ! I find whenever I go somewhere, doesn't matter where, I instinctively turn left, and it's usually wrong. On the rare occasions I turn right, I usually find I should have turned left anyway! I could get lost in a cupboard.

@Huckleberries i love to walk but I have to have a path and now I can look at doing more am going to join groups. There are loads. There is nothing else to do. I don’t want to be on the peaks for weeks like some mad woman of the hills.

Me. I have ABSOLUTELY no sense of direction AT ALL. My partner can find places he’s never been to before. I can’t find my own front door.

Frank Skinner takes photos on his phone on the way anywhere so he can find his way back.

I'm very good at map reading (to the point that I've actually done orienteering) but without a map I am completely useless.

I can relate to the posts about being stressed in a new building as I know I will get lost and it will be embarrassing. My partner used to think I was taking the piss it was so bad. I've been like this forever and it's never gotten any better, in fact as I get older it'll probably get worse!

Yes! People on this thread have described it so beautifully, and I agree with all of you! I get lost in car parks, not even multi storeys. I can use maps and Google maps (although I do have to go through the rigmarole of working out which way up I am). I also use Street View as someone said earlier, so that I have more confidence when going somewhere new. As someone else said, I don't have dyslexia etc, but I feel strongly that there is something that is missing, or doesn't connect up properly in my brain. I've ended up in tears many times, lost and panicky somewhere that should be familiar.
We should all decide to wear red roses or something so we can recognise fellow sufferers and go to help. Well, we might not be much help, but at least be an ally!

Finally! Other people like me!! I am hopeless! It’s a standing joke in my family, and my husband says I’m geographically challenged!! I can go into a shop, come out and go back the way I’ve come instead of moving on to the next shop. Nothing I do seems to help, however much I try to remember, and it seems to be getting worse the next older I get.

OMG YES! I honestly thought there was no one as bad as me so this thread is seriously reassuring. My sense of direction is absolutely awful - I can go somewhere 10 times but still need google maps! Speaking of which - thank GOD for google maps & Sat navs in general - I often wonder how I would have coped before these were invented! I actually think it’s like a disability, my daughter is dyslexic & dyscalculic and I wonder if I have an element of these which surfaces in my lack of sense of direction. I’m rubbish at sequencing events and reading maps - far better with words and landmarks - I’m much better at navigating cities as the environment changes all the time compared to say a forest where things stay roughly the same. That’s one of my fears - being lost in a forest!! 🫠😳

Me!

DH and Dc are the exact opposite and seem to know where they’re going even in completely new places!

Google maps is supposed to be helpful but always seems to be pointing in the wrong direction on my phone so I usually start off by going the wrong way! Going somewhere unfamiliar is so stressful and things like finding the way out of a train station ready to head off and then realising that there were multiple ways out and I have no idea which road I’ve emerged onto is a regular occurrence.

I just allow myself plenty of extra time!

This is why Google Maps is quite possibly one of my favourite inventions! It means that, if I'm going anywhere other than to the town centre (which is basically in a long, straight line from where I live), I might actually get there. I do build in extra time as I have a terrible memory and can't remember what the instruction was (especially if it's given too far in advance), and I get a bit overwhelmed when visiting bigger places, where it is perfectly normal to have about five lanes on one branch leading to a roundabout. Throw in anxiety and general stress about driving in new areas, and I get all in a pickle sometimes!

I can't remember my direction after I switch off the light near the bedroom door, I often bump into the wall or bed because I can't walk forward in a straight line. Now I have motion sensor lights fitted to the skirting board....no more stubbed toes!

My opinion (and I say this as someone that it relates to. So no stones being thrown from this glass house) is that it comes from not paying attention.

For the places you go often but still don’t know it’s because you are probably following gps and not actually paying attention to your surroundings.

On the other front… map reading is a skill like everything else… so it takes practice. My formative driving years were pre gps (and Mapquest)… so you did sort of have to just figure it out. Once you did though it was usually stored in the long term area of the brain. Since gps everything is stays in short term memory.

The thing that really sucked was when you found something by getting lost… I was then stuck taking a stupid wandering route if I ever went there again. Oh shit I was meant to go right there but I screwed this up last time and turned around up here. 🤣

Not quite that bad but I do always print out routes, post codes. etc, and if I'm driving write myself a crib sheet of left, right road numbers etc. If walking I would have put the little man on the google map and checked it out.

Years ago, before satnavs/google I have been known to get terribly lost going to or coming from a strange place, even having plotted it out in advance. Places not indicated on sign posts where you would expect them to be, etc.

This made me laugh, but there has to be a way

I should've done orienteering at school. But how do they teach it? How do I learn it?

Funnily enough, I'm not so bad in a car. Also not so bad in urban Street I suppose. But put me in a wild green area and I'm just lost.

Yep! This is me! Absolutely clueless! I can’t find my way around without a sat nav, don’t know left from right etc. Interesting that others have said it could be a symptom of dyspraxia because I definitely have other symptoms. 🤔

This is a great thread - I am exactly the same as you have all described.

I am not sure it is “not paying attention” in my case. I can read a map - I hike and trail run and have to be able to - I make mistakes still but know I have to triple check so I cope. But it is the no-map situations that are hardest. I have to concentrate really hard to find my way to and from the toilets in a restaurant. It I go in a shop I absolutely have to take bearings from another couple of shops either side on the way in - so as to know which way to turn when I come out. I struggle in the (admittedly somewhat higgledy-piggeldy) office building I have worked in for 7 years in unfamiliar corridors.

@Huckleberries eell let me know if you find the way (lol). I still remember the time I thought going round a lake would be ok and the time I went up a straight path with one right in Scotland. I mean I did get home each time but the extra 5/6 hours taken in top of the original time allowed was a bit much.

Yes, I'm hopeless. I'm permanently disorientated and really struggle with maps. I have frequent nightmares that are just me wandering lost for hours trying to get out of buildings while getting more and more panicky.

I’m sure the bit of brain dealing with direction is missing from my brain.
Since satnav I have felt more confident and panic less if I take a wrong turn without satnav.
I was miles from home yesterday on a simple and regularly used route An accident meant an unmarked diversion was necessary through a village totally unsuitable for the huge amount of traffic.
I missed a left turn so took the next one to double back and got totally lost. No satnav.
I tried asking Siri but no response. I stopped, tried what3words and somehow got a map up. To my utter surprise I could see the direction I needed to go so off I went. A further surprise was my Apple Watch started giving me directions.
Both me and the dog were very happy that I didn’t go 50 miles the wrong way.