Sense of direction

[LostAndConfusedYetAgain]

Name changed for this.

I have always had an appalling sense of direction.

Today this was reinforced to me yet again, as a 7 min journey took me about 40 mins. I arrived hot and stressed and frazzled and hating myself for this happening again.

I’m not diagnosed as neuro divergent, that would have been very unlikely when I was younger, but many people have said in more recent times that I may be Asperger’s and/or adhd.

Is an appalling sense of direction a regular thing amongst the neurodivergent of this world?

Grateful for any opinions / insight.

Thank you!

I have an excellent sense of direction and I have adhd. Not good at planning though.

Everyone's profile is different. There's some overlap with dyspraxia and adhd too.

Thank you for your response x

It can be a symptom/trait of dyscalculia I believe

I have an excellent sense of direction but I know that poor sense of direction and ADHD go together. I can’t do verbal instructions/directions though. I don’t hear anything after the first “turn left/right at the end of this road” although I’ll remember a middle and an end but not the connecting bits. Give me a map and I’m great. I don’t drive. I used to study the atlas and road signs at a very young age and I believe this helped with my sense of direction.

We are all different though. Apparently I'm
suppised to like non-fiction books and Star Wars as an autistic person. I can’t get excited about either. I like my books to be romantic thrillers and my films punk and fluffy because there’s too much violence in the world and I like the escapism. Not that I can focus on a film for more than 5 minutes 🙄

Have you done any of the online tests for autism and ADHD? That would be a good starting point and fun in a weird way if you like questionnaires and stuff.

Thank you - that won’t be a diagnosis I’d ever get, but thank you for your reply. I think other neurodiverse conditions may have it???

Autism, yes but ADHD, no. Good idea though.

Thanks for your reply.

Are there any particular ADHD ( or autism) questionnaires you’d recommend?

Thank you

Well mine is dreadful. In my head I organise geographical data in straight lines and right angles and I’m continually surprised irl to find how one area connects to another that I thought was miles away.

I often turn the wrong way coming out of a shop, or confuse myself on roundabouts and
I also tend to forget the boring middle bit of journeys and shorten distances in my imagination.

I can navigate quite well in situations that require logic, observation and concentrated effort - working out directions from the sun, tracking the relative position of landmarks. It’s the stuff I try and do by memory that fails me.

I’m not sure that it correlates with ND; in my family two autistics and one ADHDer are brilliant at directions.

I’ve just been diagnosed as having ADHD although I suspect I’m actually AuDHD but not pursuing a further assessment yet.

I have virtually no sense of direction. When I first passed my test I had to take my DSister everywhere with me so that I didn’t get lost, this was way before Satnavs and google maps