what effects me most having aspergers.

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Apart from being not good at making friends at all.

Even worse I'm totally useless at using buses, can't read a map, my sense of direction is very poor, and I get lost easy in public, can't follow street signs either. Unless it's in my own area that I know like the back of my hand.

Recently I've been learning how to use the tubes. So I don't look stick out and look weird , I would write down everything I need to know on a piece of paper to take with me.
If some stranger looks at me funny, I can just say I'm a tourist and I don't know london,lol.
Which would be better than saying the real reason as they are very likely to make fun of me and very likely to bully me.

Anyone alse find transport and reading maps very hard? I always used to have mum take me places in her car or get friends to drop me off places.
But I prefer to be more independent now and only learnt how to use the tube fairly recently.

You are so lucky you are close enough to tubes to use. I wish there were tubes here. Everyone drives where I live and it is such a tremendous waste of fuel. Not only does everyone drive, they drive those huge guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks with V8s in them. To me, that's really selfish.

Not only that, but these same people who are selfish enough to drive these hogs are refusing to buy anything with ethanol in it. Living here drives me crazy, I would much rather live in a city that has a decent subway or rapid transit.

Even if people looked at me weird I would still love riding around London on the "Tube" as you call it. You should have fun doing that!

Been to London & loved the Tubes! I also wish we had a similar form of transportation here. I am the complete opposite, rarely ever get lost or turned around & have no issue reading maps. However, my dad is like you! Has lived in the same area for over 20 years & he still doesn't know his way around town. I think some people just don't have a good sense of direction & it's nothing to be ashamed about! good for you for realizing that you need extra help! What about a portable GPS unit? They're not completely infallible but they are very useful devises.

I have lots of issues making friends too! Plus lots of other personal quirks that get me into trouble.

Hi xdragonxninjaxpowax

I think what you're doing to help you be able to use the Tube is simply brilliant! Don't worry about what others think, at the end of the day you've given yourself that extra bit of freedom in the world by writing things down and if people look at you weird, so what? They have no idea of the achievement they're witnessing, and NT or not, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses in life, it ultimately down to how we decide to cope with, or run away from, these challenges.

You're also not alone, I have to write things down too, or I forget to do them or do them wrong. I used to feel like such a stupid clutz, until I started taking a little notepad around with me and using that to help me keep organised.

I also used to be mindful of people looking at me while I stand there flipping through my list and muttering under my breath, but what I gained from it, and the satisfaction that gave me, has made me able to feel more confident about looking in my book.

As time goes by you will become more and more familiar with the process the more you are exposed to it and it should at least become easier, and if it doesn't having footnotes to hand means you've got something concrete on paper to read incase you can't remember what you need to be doing.

What are these tubes that everyone is talking about, I feel stupid for not nderstanding, but I learnt a while back that it is always a good idea to ask questions.

Underground trains. They run through tunnels that look like tubes.

damn europeans and their weird language...
tubes = metro/train


@OP: get an ipod touch, and use google maps

don't blame being AS = getting lost, it happens to everyone, AS or not

Thanks for the help....

I could get a portable GPS but money IS the problem. I'm unemployed but I do get Disability Living Allowance, monthly.
I suppose I could save up for one, using the DLA money, but I tend to be spend money almost immediately. As theres too much great things I want.

But as a GPS should help me, I'll look into getting one. Hopefully when I get my DLA backdated, which hasn't been yet, I'll use that money to buy one.

@computerlove: I'll look into the ipod touch, thanks. I use google maps sometimes with mum's help.

I have absolutely no sense of direction, and I think it is AS related. for example, I've been visiting Springfield Mall for five years, almost daily for the first two, then weekly for the next three, and I still get lost in there. My NT fiance thought I was just being overdramatic, so once he left me at a spot not telling me what he was up to, and then phoned me from GameStop and told me to find him.

It took me forty-five minutes : (

At least he felt guilty about doubting me!

I am also hopeless with directions. I also get lost almost all the time, even in my own town... I have even a reputation with my mates. I don't it very serioously though. It is nothing to be really ashamed of! I make sure I am well prepared when I have to go some place where I don't know the way, get a map from internet and a route, write down all the timetables from public transport etc etc. And the London tubes are quite complicated and with so many people that it looks like an ants nest it is just difficult to find your way. I have problems with it too!
I am bad in reading maps, but I am thinking taking a course in map reading and using a compass or ask my friend to learn me. He uses a compass, even in cities and he says it's really handy. I don't have the money for a gps and a compass is quite a lot cheaper.
By the way I am 38 and not ashamed I am really bad in finding my way, so you shouldn't either. There are ways to practically deal (tricks) with the lack of feeling for direction. I have learned to ask my way if I am really hopelessly lost, a thing I am not good at either. Also you are never too old to learn eh.

it is related to autism... even simply NLVDs... is why i research spatial learning as a major aspect of my autism research. and yes, everyone does get lost... but it's wrong to say it's not related or even that he's blaming AS for it... seems he's dealing with it very appropriately.

i am very directionally challenged... been gettin lost everywhere from stores to driving to playing instances in WoW... i feel kinda sorry for my parents having to deal with me having a meltdown when i was alone in my car somewhere calling them hysterical that i had no clue where i was, multiple multiple times... ah the teenage driving yrs!

i am flying to visit a friend in 2 weeks and i already know that i'm gonna have to take half a day off work ( this sat) to to a practice trial run via car up to the airport... cause i guarantee you that i am going to get lost on the highways... and i just need to give myself time to go through the whole panic and annoyance phases as i deal with the inevitable.

i don't consider this blaming As or anything... more of an acknowledgment though... as i've learned what i gotta do to deal with getting lost. cause i do, probably more often than many.

Yeah -- my mother, who isn't autistic but has traits (it runs in her family) and probably some specific learning disabilities, has almost no sense of direction at all. When she was in her fifties she finally became able to "draw lines in her head" with a lot of effort, from one place to another, if everything went right.

I learned from a young age to navigate for her, because I had an absolutely excellent sense of direction, in fact had the layouts memorized involuntarily, of everywhere I went. And I do think in me that's related to autism too. (Strange how autism can cause opposites like that.)

There is an enormous difference between getting lost sometimes, and the degree of directional impairment that people like my mother, and presumably the original poster, have. It can become very severe. Suggesting otherwise is like saying to a person with severe enough myopia to be legally blind even with maximum correction, that they should not use a white cane and that they're just using myopia as an excuse, just because it's common to have a certain amount of near-sightedness.

I'm definitely directionally impaired. I get so lost it's not even funny!

I used to use google maps alot and say I was a tourist, too. Now I use VZ Navigator on my phone. It's great. I used to carry around a small notebook with maps in it. Once I learn how to get somewhere, I have to always go that way. I can't change how I go places. I have lots of faves on my phone of places I need to go and can't ever remember how to get places.

@sedaka: thx for the info, I was unaware of the relationship :)