Anyone Else Have Trouble Understanding Verbal Instructions?

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I'm terrible at following verbal instructions.

The funniest example is driving directions when I'm lost. I pull over at a gas station and ask for directions. I pay heavy attention to the first instruction only. Basically, drive up the road and turn at the blah blah blah. I go up to where I'm supposed to turn and pull over at the next gas station and ask for my next set of instructions to the next turn.

By the way, I get lost very easily.

I hate the idea of a satnav. I couldn't follow one. For me, I get a map every time. If I pull in and see where I am and where I need to be on a map so I have a picture of the map in my head I am ok. If I try to follow turn left, turn right, or instructions like that I can only remember two or three instructions.

tough to get a paying or even volunteer job because of it.

I think I've gotten a little better as I've gotten older but trying to follow complex instructions or ones with many steps can still be difficult. Short and clear verbal instruction I do fine with but for the rest I'm better with having it written down. It still needs to be written very simply though.

Some people will diverge from the instruction while the are saying them. Like if I'm being asked to feed the cat at a certain time they will then diverge by talking about when they are going to feed them, how much all while saying what they want me to do and what I don't need to do. Another example is if I'm asking when I'm going to be picked up and then they list when they have appointments, when there's a break and when the last appt is and when they'll be ready. Giving me instructions or telling me anything like this is a nightmare for me. My brain grabs bits and pieces and often misses the main information I need. But of course I'm the one to blame for not remembering what I needed to know.It's a real pain, it'd be so much easier if they left all the unnecessary junk out.

I used to be terrible at it but somehow I seem to have improved w/age. Don't ask me how it just sort've happened along w/some other areas of how I think especially over the last 10-15 years. I suppose it can still happen sometimes though as others have said it depends on how complicated the directions are and how familiar or not I am w/the tasks involved. Since I'm not really working that's surely made it an issue I encounter less often than many/most people.

I can't really use those apps that give you verbal directions because they don't repeat themselves. Last time I was with a colleague and whenever the app gave an instruction I had to ask him what it had said. Which was embarrassing.

But that's an auditory processing issue, I think, or maybe an attention deficit thing. I just don't get things first time.

Ooh. There's hope for me! I have got worse as I have got older, but maybe... As I age...

Something came to me. When I was telling my mum (And she gets similar symptoms... Well some of them... If I am diognosed she will likely have it as well) about rhings she said it could be mid life crisis. Then a thought came to me. Great! I am 47 now so it means I will live to be 94. Now that is a happy thought, as on my dads side of the family they died from natural causes at ages from 43 onwards with mydad and his brother reaching the ripe ages of 62 or 61. (There was said to be a single individual who lasted to 73 a few generations ago). My mums side, apart from my grandad who died at 73, they all lasted well into their 90's. I believe my grandads dad who died at 98 (Who had a heart attack when he was around 19 or 21 years old so he took things easy) was from a large family of 14 children and I think (From what I have been told) they all died at 98 years old?

Yes, true for me too.
I find that sadly most people don't care about being precise, which really trips me up because I tend to overthink, so when I'm given vague instructions which could be interpreted in a number of ways, I get really confused.

The same goes for written instructions that aren't precise. My husband is on the spectrum too and has the same issue. We took one of our cats to the vet the other day for an operation and had to fill in a form with questions about her. We ended up not knowing how to answer SO many of them because they were relatively vague, and we had to ask the vet to clarify. E.g. "has she had problems with her eyesight?" I mean yeah, years ago, but is that what they want to know? Do they mean "has she ever had problems with her eyesight?" or "has she had problems with her eyesight recently?" since I'm not a vet, I don't know what they're looking for and it would really help for them to be more precise. So yeah, the overthinking is a bit of an issue.

Woow. It is forms that ask things like that is where I get the problems. I mean... Well, a few months ago I had to be knocked out after waitinh four years to have teeth out. I had to fill out a consent form. I was nurvous. I didn't want to deal with forms. Just remembering my name was enough and how to write it. I was that nurvous! Haha. I started ro answer the quextions. I came to the point on the form of my drinking habbits. I have always had difficulty in answering this as it asks "Do you drink" (As in alcohol). I can't exactly say no as I would be lieing. But I would only have a glass of wine with a Christmas meal. In other words, it amounts to about a single unit or two spread over a year.
Then the form asks "How much alcohol do you consume in a week" and the options are from one or two units and up. I am often finding I can't answer these forms. (Why in general I can't use the internet for official forms). This one allowed room to write so I wrote a glass of wine at Christmas with a meal, or something along those lines.
Well the surgeon who was operating on me told me off. He said "What's this?" I think he may have seen it as funny or he was telling me off. It is hard to tell.
I had a similar issue while working on the railways. Traincrew report forms. Normal people would spend about twenty minutes on these. It often took me three or four hours... (I would not claim for the actual time it took me as I would break the 12 hour rule if I did).
On my first traincrew report form one area said "Lighting". The incident had happened at a station and the next day I went back to the far reaching edges of our area, back to the station in question to look. I put "Filimant type" as the bulbs looked like the old filament bulbs. I had a right telling off by my trains manager at the time, but it was hard to work out what was expected. (I was kind of put in it as we were very late. (As a guard I was told by an old guard that if we were late and we know no one was getting on or off we could speed things up by drivinb straight through, but on this day we slowed right down ready to stop, and a man who had been drinking didn't seem to be getting up off the seat towards the train (It was regular to get drunks using the seats of railway platforms who had no intention of travelling) so I gave the signal to carry on. The gentleman had been waiting for the train and had to book himself a taxi to get home. This is why we needed to write a report form.
The problem on the railway was where we would normally write one or two a year, a new company took over and wanted a report form (Which went on our record) nearly every day as if we lost a minute of time it was report form time. (No other company did this and there was a local misstiming between two stops on the timetable) so I became so stressed out as I would try to fill in every small detail which I had been taught to fill in, as they could be used as legal documents. So often I was there at the end of the shift already tired staying back filling out these forms. I eventually left the railway due to the shifts catching up on me.

Yes, I do. I often have to ask many questions to clarify the details. I get a lot of "Yes! I just told you that." from my parents, especially my dad. I know a lot of them sound like "stupid" questions but my brain sees too many possibilities and so I need clarification/more details. I also often have to say, "woah, wait, so you want me to do *a thing* and then *this other thing*?" and have them continue once I've got them mentally or physically written down.

It's part of the reason phone calls make me so anxious. Sometimes I can barely understand the other person solely because my brain is struggling to translate the words fast enough into the way my brain understands things.

On my first job, my boss said to me, "Never go anywhere without something to write on." I obeyed, from that day to this. Automatically I scribble as people give instructions. That's the answer. Otherwise, I understand/remember nothing.
Also, I bring lists everywhere, groceries, doctors etc.

i learned from dr. amen about having my brains on paper, IOW a script for the day, that always reminded me of the plan and its importance.

I do relate, but for some reason I can't think of an example.

Usually, I need someone to explain something at least one more time if they say it verbally. Either that or there may be an aspect of the instruction I don't fully process or that I don't understand so I may need to ask for clarification, or I need people to repeat that part of the instructions.

I'm completely lost if people expect me to get it right the first time only based on the first time explaining it. I tend to either tune out or my brain doesn't quite get the info if there are a lot of steps/details to said task.

I do okay if it's a task I'm familiar with but with new tasks, I will most likely not get it right away if it's explained just once, and I learn better by doing. I am pretty good at figuring things out if it's similar to something I've done in the past or that I am familiar with. Taking notes can also be helpful.

I usually don't have issues with verbal instructions, unless they are extremely complex and/or convoluted, in which case I will need each step explained separately as I am following along.

I have trouble with multi-step directions.

I probably do as well as a five-year-old in that sense....to the utter frustration of my wife and mother.