Sense of direction

Post Reply New Topic

I was wondering what people's sense of direction was like. Mine is poor and I struggle in unfamiliar areas. This has made me mildly agoraphobic ( can leave the house but very restricted as to where I'll go by myself). Even though I have lived in the area for nearly 20 years I can't explain how to get to places fairly nearby.

You're not the only one. If people try to give me directions by saying things like "go north on this road with an arbitrary number", I'm like.... how the heck am I supposed to know which way is north?

I end up entirely navigating by landmarks, which could be anything from a house in a specific spot, to a pile of rocks. I end up travelling almost entirely on either mostly empty country roads, or mostly empty and broken-down country roads, and usually learn the area through entirely random exploration where I just drive around and turn on any road that looks somehow interesting, so long as that road does not enter some sort of "urban" area, though fortunately there just arent any such places around here. It gives me something to do.

I don't drive as I would be death on the road due to poor reactions and spatial difficulties. However like you I am very reliant on landmarks .
Where I do best is if there are not too many "turn left turn left again turn right" type directions needed.

I have a thyroid disorder that's resistant to treatment, so I need to get my blood taken every so often. I always go to the same, local hospital and to the same area of the hospital to get it done. I've had it done many times over a period of several years. Doesn't matter, though. I know the way in, but on the way out I have to have the nurse point me out the right direction to head in. Every. Single. Time.

So, suffice it to say that a sense of direction is definitely not one of my strong suits. Probably the only thing I'm any worse at is math. My mother often says I'd get lost in my own closet...she isn't that far off, to be honest. Good thing I don't have a walk-in closet!

This is one of many reasons I don't drive.

...

Oh, God. I just remembered a time I was walking along and some people stopped to ask me directions. Oh God. To this day I wonder if they ever found what they were looking for or did I send them off into the wilderness to die?? Those poor people, out of everyone on Earth they had to pick me to ask for directions. What incredibly lousy luck for them. ;_;

My sense of direction is severely bad. I have to have someone with me outdoors or I'll get lost. GPS is helping me navigate better. Now we try to make it so the person with me does the following and intervenes as needed.

My sense of direction is terrible. I've learned how to get from class to class through habit, really. My NT little sister, meanwhile, was able to give directions for driving to school when she was four.

I wonder what people thought of this from a current psychiatry article http://www.currentpsychiatry.com/filead ... ticle3.pdf re spatial cognition

note that NLD=poor sense of direction and asperger=precise sense of direction.

Yes, I have no sense of direction and frequently get lost. To combat this I began adding +15% extra time to any trip outside my house. I still get lost but it gives me time to find myself again eventually.

i have some sense: i can find my way back easily. if i park in an unfamiliar town and spend a day randomly walking around (like when i'm christmas shopping), i can easily find where i parked.
however, i only know A<->B and A<->C, i cannot easily go from B to C, nor do i have any real idea of north or distance (other than time)

My sense of direction is rather poor, and it takes me a while to learn my way around whenever I go to a new area. Whenever people tell me to go north/south/east/west it always confuses the s**t out of me because I almost never know where the hell they are in the first place. Thankfully, Google Maps has helped a LOT when it comes to navigating my new city, since it's like having a GPS in my pocket at all times.

I wonder what people thought of this from a current psychiatry article http://www.currentpsychiatry.com/filead ... ticle3.pdf re spatial cognition

note that NLD=poor sense of direction and asperger=precise sense of direction.

Mine is somewhat lacking, I always get right and left mixed up sometimes I have to think about what hand I write with to figure it out. As for directions like north, south, east and west the only reason I know those is because I live near Denver Colorado so the mountains are to the west and based on that I can determine the rest of them.

But yeah I don't enjoy getting lost, but I now have a smart-phone I can use to look at google maps and the bus scedules when I am out and about to figure out how to get to places.

I have an excellent sense of direction - and a history of being the one who is able to get a group I'm with "un-lost".

I am a walking GPS/compass. My sense of direction is so good its almost like a sixth sense. If I have been in a place and walked away in any direction (or moved by any vehicle, as long as it was distance no more than about 3 kms) I can return there from any point using any way even if I am first time in the city and know only what I seen on my way. It's like I am constantly drawing an area map - I know how my position relates to the point I started at and I can imagine how all the streets in the city connect by passing the crossroads. When I am in trouble I just choose any street heading about the direction where any point I know is and "check my position" again on each crossroad to fix the route till I get there. I never failed.

It doesn't however work when I change environments. For example I have a clear area map of the city and a clear area map of a big shop but at the moment I leave the shop I feel lost for a while(my mind starts drawing next map instead of using last one). It takes a while for the city area map I was using before entering the shop to load again. Sometimes I need to walk around for a bit to discover big enough part of the forgotten map to make it load. But once it loads - I know where I am and where to go to get to any point on my map.

I can also use google maps and any area map I see to add more details to my area map. I don't have to visit places to put them on my map as long as their location was clear on any map I seen. Of course it works only for stuffs I found interesting. I won't remember all area details. Just the street connections and locations of chosen points. Although I can recall other details too if I focus. For example someone asks me "Where is the BPH bank?" and although I am not interested in banks I will browse my memory for images of any building that might be a bank and if I find just one or two I might be able to locate them although they might be just shops designed like banks.

I suppose that NVLD fits me more than "classic" AS. I confused left and right as a child quite often. I did not bother with it so much. But I was interested in maps and was good in reading them. I have not so large problems in finding ways. I liked video games and remember quite much from them. My reading comprehension was rather good, I was not so bad in mathematics. I learned how to ride a bicycle before my 6th birthday. Scholastic learning was my general large asset., but I have not excellent visual thinking and memory.

I have a pretty subpar sense of direction; however, I do walk a lot, but it's almost always along set routes that I've memorised. I used to live by my town's Fred Meyer and I'd walk there with no issue, because I'd memorised the route. However, much of the time, I'd end up walking out the other end of the store and it was like stepping out into a different city.

I'm terrible at giving directions.

I also often mix up left and right when I'm on the spot. Once, when I was being driven home, I accidentally said right instead of left, and we almost drove into a bush haha.

I've read that topographical agnosia or "place blindness" is fairly common with Asperger's.