"Place Blindness," being directionally challenged

Post Reply New Topic

I have a horrible sense of direction but I thought some of it was related to my dyslexia & ADHD & bad eyesight. I get left & rite confused, front & back, ect & have problems paying attention maybe related to ADHD. It's easy to get lost when you get directions your given confused, don't pay attention while going somewhere & don't have the vision to notice the harder to see details that others can.

I've heard that Aspies can have problems noticing changes in things; like if a painting on wall or small piece of furniture gets moved; Aspies mite not notice it. Not noticing changes could be related to this

Yes, absolutely. I spend a significant portion of my life lost, even in places I have been to many, many times before. The only way I can learn a route is to verbally memorize it step-by-step, with landmarks and street names, and even then I frequently get lost because I often don't see signs or landmarks (or I can't figure out which street sign goes with which street) and I get disoriented easily. I also forget learned routes very quickly after even a short delay, even if I had previously used them on a daily basis. I also have more general impairment in the areas of visuospatial perception and memory however (I have a nonverbal learning disability).

I have only met one other person in my (real- not online) life who is as directionally-challenged as I am. Other people will say "I have a bad sense of direction," but for them it is merely something they are not good at, rather than something which causes a serious impairment in their life. It's like comparing someone with autism to someone who is a little socially awkward, or someone who has aphasia to someone who occasionally has difficulty thinking of a word. It's annoying when someone claims to have a poor sense of direction, but then acts flabbergasted when I get lost on the way to the dentist I have seen since I was five years old, as if no one could possibly be that hopeless at directions. It sucks when other people are amazed by how incredibly bad you are at something.

This has always been a HUGE problem for me. It's why I'm always having to travel with someone else to go to places I haven't been to before, and often to places I have been to plenty of times also. I still forget how to get to places that are only a couple blocks away, all the time.

I would say I´m also "directionally challenged". I´m terrified of driving somewhere I´ve never been before, or driving in a different city. Like, huge paranoia-fear. I can know my way walking somewhere if I go exactly the same way day in and day out....however, if I try to go a different way, or try a shortcut that someone says is "easier", I get totally lost. That´s partly why I do the same things the same way over and over again, otherwise I get too confused. I can walk into a small, 1 roomed store, and then inadvertently walk out from a different exit and be completely lost, not knowing where I am or how I got there.

Glad to know other intelligent people have these problems too.....

*edit* double post, sorry.

I have HUGE problems like this. The first time I got lost I was just a few years old, and I remember it vividly, somehow I got turned around and though I was walking one way on a boardwalk (to get back) but I was walking the other way and then I reached a "road closed" sign and it was extremely terrifying.

When I'm driving I make it to and from but I often take the same route. I frequently get lost if I improvise. I always try to print out directions on mapquest or google maps in advance of going somewhere, and I carry a lot of maps in the car. I don't have trouble reading a map but it's the general disorientation I have about how to get from point A to point B. The way I think of it is I have these images in my mind of all the places I've been, and I recognize them when I'm there, but the in-between connectors are clouded in heavy fog. I have even gotten lost trying to drive out of a parking lot! If I have to be somewhere important and on time, like a job interview, I will actually drive to the place in advance beforehand to figure out and make some visual memories on the route.

I've lost my car so many times on foot in parking lot that it's scary (literally). I've gotten so turned around in cities in places I've been so many times, and panic sets in. One time I tried to go to a shop on one side of a park, and I went to the spatially correct location, but the shop was totally changed! It was similar, but different. I had this sense of those stories you read where the person buys something magical at the mysterious shop and when they go back the next day, it's disappeared. It was extremely disorienting. As it turned out the shop in question was actually on a different side of the park in that respective location.

I spend so much of my time navigating in a complete fog as to where I'm at. My only note of comfort is somehow I always make it back (going back is easier than finding somewhere), even though it may take a long time. I can only attribute divine intervention.

Im hopeless with directions but Im great with a map...it's not that I have a bad sense of direction, I dont have one at all

Hehehe... I dropped my sister off at the Larkspur Ferry to go to work, and meant to go back to her house, just 3 minutes up the hill. Emerging out of the ferry parking lot I was disoriented and turned right instead of left, and before I knew it I was on 580 about to go over the Richmond bridge. No exits once I discovered my mistake, so I turned around and asked the toll booth operator how to turn around. She told me I had to park in yonder lot and go and explain my situation to the people in ----->that building over there (didn't have my purse with money for the return trip).

Trouble was, I was wearing my (then) husband's corduroys, which were WAY too short and WAY too wide (falling off wide), and the shortness of the corduroys revealed way too much of my unshaved legs, and my shirt was dorky and my hair was unkempt (to say the least), and I do have my pride, so I continued across the bridge (no toll for that direction) to Richmond, to Berkeley, and finally to Oakland, where I got on the bay bridge to San Francisco. Toll booth! Ack! But they didn't ask me to step out of the car, they just took the license plate number and said they'd bill me. Joy!

So I wended my way through San Francisco, here, there, probably down Lombardy Street, until I finally found 19th Street, and followed the signs to Hwy 101, which was familiar to me. Eventually I found my sister's house and emailed her my embarrassment. She told me that she was in a meeting where the boss asked, "So, does anyone have anything to say?" No one spoke up, so my sister said, "Well, I do!" And she related my 3 minute trip to the ferry, and my all-day trip back from it. Heh heh.

I used to be terrible with directions and driving. I found that getting maps and memorizing them helped immensely. I still tend not to notice landmarks on my routes. I cannot memorize a route if I am a passenger. Even if I do have a route memorized, I have my GPS on for longer trips incase I suddenly need an alternate route.

Definitely. I did very well when I lived in a small city that was, more or less, a perfect grid, and all of the streets had letters and numbers for designations. 1st Ave, 2nd Ave, 3rd Ave, etc, and then A St, B St, C St . . . and then across town, 1st St, 2nd St, A Ave, B Ave . . . I could always navigate because I could use the grid and the numbers to determine my destination.

Everywhere before or since, I've been confused. I drive three miles to work each day, and I have to be very careful not to miss my turns. I can't get two miles away in any other direction without losing it.

I definitely have this. It took me years to learn how to get to the borough next to mine by foot even though its pretty much a straight road.

Sometimes I use it to my advantage though. I love "getting lost in London" trips. I start at Earl's Court station and walk in random directions with my friend and do that for 3-4 hours. Then we find the nearest bus and take it to the nearest underground station and then go home lol.

]I have this "location blindness" also. It is quite frustrating. I thought I was the only one. I realize your post is years old, however, I'm hoping you are still active.
I can go to a place a have been a 100 times, and it seems is if I'm seeing it for the first time. I still get disoriented in my apartment complex and we have lived here six years. I get lost in grocery stores and malls are a nightmare.
I use my GPS every time I leave my home. Even a quick trip down the road is a full on read trip for more because I do not recognize the buildings out the turns in the road. Coming home is like a blank slate. Often the parking lot in front of my own door looks foreign to me.
If anyone else out there suffers from this, please let me know.
I can't be alone.....[/url][/img]