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How good are you at getting to places?

firemonkeyfiremonkey Citizen
in General ASD
My stepdaughter takes me to places I need to go to . That's because I have a poor sense of direction, and of course to give me support.
Even before Covid, and the chronic backache, I never went far from home on my own.

At my last place I would take the bus to just two places. That was because I knew where to get on and off the bus with those journeys . In the 3+ years I've been here I've not been on a bus. Truth is I'm too anxious  and scared of getting off at the wrong place and getting lost. The likely result being I'd totally lose it.


Comments

  • verityverity Administrator, Citizen
    edited May 2021
    I have aphantasia so can't picture landmarks or recall them visually. However I can recognise them when I see them.

    If I don't see landmarks in the order I expect I get lost.
  • HylianHylian Citizen, Mentor
    I am okay at remembering how to get to places via landmarks. I can remember a lot of visual details, so I just organize the landmarks into "steps" and then I have a "plan" for how to get places.

    If I don't already know how to get somewhere I become very disoriented though, and can't navigate with directions unless someone tells me landmarks to look for.
  • firemonkeyfiremonkey Citizen
    verity said:
    I have aphantasia so can't picture landmarks or recall them visually. However I can recognise them when I see them.

    If I don't see landmarks in the order I expect I get lost.

    Same here- no images,smells,sounds,taste & touch. Have done several research surveys about it. There's some evidence pointing to it occurring more frequently in those on the spectrum. 
  • Butterfly88Butterfly88 Citizen
    I'm directionally challenged and also have a lot of anxiety so that doesn't help either.  Also if someone gives me verbal directions I won't remember them, has to be written down.  
  • firemonkeyfiremonkey Citizen
    I'm the same with the need to have things written down.
  • WizardryWizardry Citizen, Mentor
    I seem to have a greater degree of difficulty navigating my way around an unfamiliar area than most people. I also seem to take longer to acclimatise to an unfamiliar area such that I'm confident navigating my own way around.

    Google Maps is instrumental in helping me not get lost in unfamiliar places.
  • BenderBender Citizen
    verity said:
    I have aphantasia so can't picture landmarks or recall them visually. However I can recognise them when I see them.

    If I don't see landmarks in the order I expect I get lost.
    I'm a bit like this too, I'm not a visual person and have a pretty weak sense of direction. I have to pay a lot of attention to the environment in order to not get lost in places I don't know well.

    I have a friend who has some kind of inbuilt GPS and can easily - almost instinctively - get his bearings anywhere. You could drop him in the middle of Tokyo for the first time and he knows exactly how to get where he wants, it's uncanny.

  • AmityAmity Administrator, Citizen
    If I have a map in my mind, as in if I have studied the route in advance I can manage without getting lost. Google satelite has made a massive difference to my ability to navigate in urban areas. I used to get terribly anxious and lost in cities, but being able to see the route in advance and do a street view at confusing points allows me to plan ahead in my mind.

    One side of my family are like human sat navs, so I wonder if this has helped me out, or maybe its like with Hylian, Im quite visual and with the right tools or aids, sense of direction is an area that works well with this learning style.
  • Teach51Teach51 Citizen
    While teaching programmers English  at CISCO the American hi-tech company over here, I got totally lost. They have several floors with identical carpets and doors and when I went to the bathroom on a break I just couldn't find my way back to the room I was teaching in and I got really panicky. This in itself was absolutely unwarranted, what could happen in an airconditioned building full of programmers? Eventually someone undertook the mission of finding Teach and brought me back to the safety of the meeting room. After that one of the guys would escort me personally to the ladies room, wait outside the door and then escort me back.
    I totally lack the basic skill of navigation. I actually don't own  a car anymore but when I had  one I would do a practice drive to where I was going so that I could remember visual landmarks on the way and not miss an important appointment when I had to actually be there. I need visual landmarks. Like with my reading I seem to remember and internalize a route after 3 or four  times of trying.
  • BenderBender Citizen
    Amity said:
    If I have a map in my mind, as in if I have studied the route in advance I can manage without getting lost. Google satelite has made a massive difference to my ability to navigate in urban areas. I used to get terribly anxious and lost in cities, but being able to see the route in advance and do a street view at confusing points allows me to plan ahead in my mind.


    Did you grow up in a smaller place? I find navigating the city easier, as I grew up with the kind of landmarks specific to cities (metro/subway stations, churches etc). I have to be a lot more careful in rural or small areas.

    I'm generally aware of which direction I turn and how many times, but that's about it.
  • firemonkeyfiremonkey Citizen
    To put it bluntly-I'm crap at reading maps,including Google maps.
  • AmityAmity Administrator, Citizen
    Yup I encountered maybe 7 sets of traffic lights in total before I took my driving test, though possibly less, so you could safely say very small and rural and landmarks were odd shaped trees or a stand alone building for example.

    City landmarks were overwhelming to remember in description form to look out for in the moment, so stressful, but doing a drive through on street view in advance for complicated or overstimulating sections of a route has been a game changer for me with this one. I still feel the stress, but not to the point that my executive functioning is affected.

    Driving long distances, again with a general map in my mind, I find my sense of direction is quite good.
    Its a feeling I get that tells me Im going in the right direction rather than remembering how many lefts or rights Ive taken or need to take (because I wont remember these anyway lol). I dont know how to describe it.
  • HylianHylian Citizen, Mentor
    I used to be bad at reading maps, but now I am a bit better at it. The Google thing where you can see actual buildings and things, instead of just a plain map is very helpful.
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