The great indoors: Anecdotes of a directionally challenged person
I have previously written a drabble where I speculated that my hippocampus was not properly functioning because I had such a poor sense of direction and navigation. I've also written another post, where amongst other incidents, I talk about how I lost my way from the restroom to my cabin at work: Misadventures in a Concrete Jungle.
Today, I will elaborate on my struggles a bit more, hopefully in an interesting way. Read on! :)
Have you ever walked out of a store/restaurant onto the road and had no sense of which way you came or any orientation whatsoever? I have, and sometimes I have walked off in the opposite direction for a few hundred metres before realising it. I have even taken a bus with the right route number, but going in the opposite direction. Have you asked someone for directions and then been insanely lost in the gibberish sequence of lefts and rights that they have belted out? I have every single time, and I no longer ask for directions. Have you had a delivery person ask you for directions to your home from a familiar place, and yet you find yourself completely unable to picture it and give them directions? I have, and I've felt woefully inadequate and utterly ridiculous.
I am one of those people who truly worships Google Maps. Before Maps, the world was a complete wilderness to me and comprised majorly of the scenarios outlined in the previous paragraph. Afterwards, it started making sense, like an image that comes from giddy blurriness into sharp focus. In fact, I go to the extent of being hugely thankful about even tiny nuances in the app, such as the arrow which tells you which way you face. That has made my life so much easier, and now to navigate, I use the turtle method that I learnt in BASIC programming.
But wait, there's still the great indoors, the source of my present day woes. You know the Ariadne's thread-like retracing mechanism that you are equipped with? The one where you(a normal person) head into a mall/restaurant/shop, and then reverse the sequence of your steps to find the exit? That seems to be completely absent in my brain. I inevitably struggle to find my way out, and when I ask security, they sometimes tell me: "The same way you came in, Ma'am." I scream inside my head: That isn't helpful at all! If I remembered that, I wouldn't be asking you in the first place. :P But I feel scared and weird to tell someone that I can't remember the way I came in, so I meekly walk away, and wander around in haphazard paths till I finally stumble upon the exit. Airports, railways stations, bus terminals are all maze-like to me, and I can't find my way in or out, even after I've been there dozens of times. (Yeah, all this is long after I'm familiar with the place, in case you were about to tell me that everyone faces the same thing in a new place!)
I'm that person, who in a restaurant, goes to the washroom, and then on her way out, wishes there was a helpful green sign saying "your table" with directions. Because that's how lost I am, and I literally cannot reorient myself to find the exact spot I was sitting at and walked away from two minutes ago. I've been to friends' or relatives' houses, and I cannot find my way from one room to the other. I've several times wandered into the wrong room, and I sincerely hope my hosts didn't think I was prying. People have laughed at this, and they just couldn't believe that I lost my way inside a house. Last year, I was walking from one block to the other in my wedding venue to fetch my clothes, and despite having been photographed there and having walked around half a dozen times, I couldn't find my way to the room. I debated calling my newly wedded husband asking for directions, but I didn't want to scare him off on the first day. :P
A month ago, a friend had come home, and we were sitting by the pool on the ground floor. When we walked back, I headed to the wrong block two times, and only realised this when I saw the naming.
She laughed at me for this because I'd been living here for a year.(not in a bad way)
While all this is bad enough, there's one scenario that is from nightmares. Parking lots, both outdoor and indoor. When it's outdoor, I cannot even recall which part of the parking lot the vehicle I came in is parked. And when it's indoor, it's a hundred times worse. Again, before you reassure me that everyone gets lost in unfamiliar indoor parking spaces, let me clarify that this is a fixed designated parking slot at the apartment I live, where I've been living for the past year now. The laundry guy is located in this basement, and my husband once asked me to collect a bunch of clothes from him. I refused on the grounds that I'd be hopelessly lost with three heavy bags, and he helpfully took a piece of paper and drew the layout of the apartment on it. He explained how all the blocks were laid out in a semicircle, and that the basement was also the same, and spoke about radii and arcs. It seemed easy enough, and I nodded in understanding.
And then, I actually went to the basement. The whole picture vanished from my head, or rather, I could still see it, but I couldn't connect it to my reality--the mechanism that was needed to do that correlation was just not working. It felt like being trapped in a pitch dark maze, and I was petrified for a minute. I wandered around aimlessly, and miraculously stumbled upon the laundry guy. I collected the bags from him, and then, feeling terribly embarrassed, asked him for the way to the elevator for my block. He outright laughed at me, and then pointed vaguely and gave me a sequence of lefts and rights that were beyond my comprehension. I walked around for five minutes, my muscles straining with the weight of the three bags, unable to orient myself. I stumbled upon an elevator(these were thankfully named), not the one to my block, but I took it anyway, because I felt a desperate need to be above ground. I reached the ground floor, and familiarity kicked in. I found the way to my apartment, and opened the door, feeling half thankful and entirely ridiculous. I shudder at the thought of driving, and finding my way to a parking spot.
I could tell you many incidents like this, where I have struggled with things that everyone else finds effortless. I have been petrified of so many things just based on this one fear: being lost and unable to find my way. I have also struggled with explaining it to people, because most of them don't understand. They laugh it away, or chide me for not paying enough attention.(Oh, but I do, I so desperately try to memorise landmarks and signs and what not). The most positive reply I've heard is: Oh, you're a genius! :P
I've also been very conscious in labelling this as a cognitive impairment, and I still wonder if doing so worsens it because of confirmation bias and other things.
But then, gradually, one fundamental thing changed. I stopped letting this fear overwhelm me. I developed coping mechanisms.
I'd be lost, yes. So what? I'd find my back again.
People would laugh at me, yes. So what? They didn't see it from my point of view, or they didn't care. Why should I let their comments bother me?
I've found that walking a place helps. So does repetition, on a very large scale. I use the two, often in tandem, to my benefit. I've also found that visual aids like Maps help, and I've used them consistently. I also use the benefit of a friend or a relative as an escort, whenever I can. I am very conscious about noting down landmarks indoors, and I often note them on my phone and then look for them on my way back.
Of late, I have been thinking of finding some literature in neuroscience and reading up on this. Maybe I will find something that helps me better understand what I am dealing with, and how I could overcome it. I will keep you posted, Dear Reader.
P.S: I still dislike calling this a disability, because it seems to hint at something I cannot overcome, and I'm sure I can. However, I use the term to indicate the scale of what I go through, on a daily basis. :)
Today, I will elaborate on my struggles a bit more, hopefully in an interesting way. Read on! :)
Have you ever walked out of a store/restaurant onto the road and had no sense of which way you came or any orientation whatsoever? I have, and sometimes I have walked off in the opposite direction for a few hundred metres before realising it. I have even taken a bus with the right route number, but going in the opposite direction. Have you asked someone for directions and then been insanely lost in the gibberish sequence of lefts and rights that they have belted out? I have every single time, and I no longer ask for directions. Have you had a delivery person ask you for directions to your home from a familiar place, and yet you find yourself completely unable to picture it and give them directions? I have, and I've felt woefully inadequate and utterly ridiculous.
I am one of those people who truly worships Google Maps. Before Maps, the world was a complete wilderness to me and comprised majorly of the scenarios outlined in the previous paragraph. Afterwards, it started making sense, like an image that comes from giddy blurriness into sharp focus. In fact, I go to the extent of being hugely thankful about even tiny nuances in the app, such as the arrow which tells you which way you face. That has made my life so much easier, and now to navigate, I use the turtle method that I learnt in BASIC programming.
But wait, there's still the great indoors, the source of my present day woes. You know the Ariadne's thread-like retracing mechanism that you are equipped with? The one where you(a normal person) head into a mall/restaurant/shop, and then reverse the sequence of your steps to find the exit? That seems to be completely absent in my brain. I inevitably struggle to find my way out, and when I ask security, they sometimes tell me: "The same way you came in, Ma'am." I scream inside my head: That isn't helpful at all! If I remembered that, I wouldn't be asking you in the first place. :P But I feel scared and weird to tell someone that I can't remember the way I came in, so I meekly walk away, and wander around in haphazard paths till I finally stumble upon the exit. Airports, railways stations, bus terminals are all maze-like to me, and I can't find my way in or out, even after I've been there dozens of times. (Yeah, all this is long after I'm familiar with the place, in case you were about to tell me that everyone faces the same thing in a new place!)
I'm that person, who in a restaurant, goes to the washroom, and then on her way out, wishes there was a helpful green sign saying "your table" with directions. Because that's how lost I am, and I literally cannot reorient myself to find the exact spot I was sitting at and walked away from two minutes ago. I've been to friends' or relatives' houses, and I cannot find my way from one room to the other. I've several times wandered into the wrong room, and I sincerely hope my hosts didn't think I was prying. People have laughed at this, and they just couldn't believe that I lost my way inside a house. Last year, I was walking from one block to the other in my wedding venue to fetch my clothes, and despite having been photographed there and having walked around half a dozen times, I couldn't find my way to the room. I debated calling my newly wedded husband asking for directions, but I didn't want to scare him off on the first day. :P
A month ago, a friend had come home, and we were sitting by the pool on the ground floor. When we walked back, I headed to the wrong block two times, and only realised this when I saw the naming.
She laughed at me for this because I'd been living here for a year.(not in a bad way)
And then, I actually went to the basement. The whole picture vanished from my head, or rather, I could still see it, but I couldn't connect it to my reality--the mechanism that was needed to do that correlation was just not working. It felt like being trapped in a pitch dark maze, and I was petrified for a minute. I wandered around aimlessly, and miraculously stumbled upon the laundry guy. I collected the bags from him, and then, feeling terribly embarrassed, asked him for the way to the elevator for my block. He outright laughed at me, and then pointed vaguely and gave me a sequence of lefts and rights that were beyond my comprehension. I walked around for five minutes, my muscles straining with the weight of the three bags, unable to orient myself. I stumbled upon an elevator(these were thankfully named), not the one to my block, but I took it anyway, because I felt a desperate need to be above ground. I reached the ground floor, and familiarity kicked in. I found the way to my apartment, and opened the door, feeling half thankful and entirely ridiculous. I shudder at the thought of driving, and finding my way to a parking spot.
I could tell you many incidents like this, where I have struggled with things that everyone else finds effortless. I have been petrified of so many things just based on this one fear: being lost and unable to find my way. I have also struggled with explaining it to people, because most of them don't understand. They laugh it away, or chide me for not paying enough attention.(Oh, but I do, I so desperately try to memorise landmarks and signs and what not). The most positive reply I've heard is: Oh, you're a genius! :P
I've also been very conscious in labelling this as a cognitive impairment, and I still wonder if doing so worsens it because of confirmation bias and other things.
But then, gradually, one fundamental thing changed. I stopped letting this fear overwhelm me. I developed coping mechanisms.
I'd be lost, yes. So what? I'd find my back again.
People would laugh at me, yes. So what? They didn't see it from my point of view, or they didn't care. Why should I let their comments bother me?
I've found that walking a place helps. So does repetition, on a very large scale. I use the two, often in tandem, to my benefit. I've also found that visual aids like Maps help, and I've used them consistently. I also use the benefit of a friend or a relative as an escort, whenever I can. I am very conscious about noting down landmarks indoors, and I often note them on my phone and then look for them on my way back.
Of late, I have been thinking of finding some literature in neuroscience and reading up on this. Maybe I will find something that helps me better understand what I am dealing with, and how I could overcome it. I will keep you posted, Dear Reader.
P.S: I still dislike calling this a disability, because it seems to hint at something I cannot overcome, and I'm sure I can. However, I use the term to indicate the scale of what I go through, on a daily basis. :)
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