Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Little Girl Lost
Ever since I was a small child, I’ve had difficulty finding my way.
I don’t mean in spiritual, philosophical, or political matters. I think I’m pretty well grounded in all those things, and Lord knows, I have pretty firm beliefs about them too. I was lucky to be raised in a family of smart people with strong opinions, a healthy sense of right and wrong, and a commitment to raising its children to be civilized and caring adults.
Most importantly, I realize from my current vantage point, I was given a sense of perspective about my own place in the world and I was taught that it “I was not the one [the world] had been waiting for,” that it did not revolve around me, that the sun did not shine out of any of my bodily orifices, and that sometimes my own wants and needs would be subordinated to those of others whose wants and needs were greater than mine. Valuable life lessons, all. (The irony for all those marching in lockstep for the right to declare themselves each a “snowflake” unique from all the others sharing exactly the same opinions and doing exactly the same thing is that my family is full of individuals. We’re all different, we’re all a bit odd, and we all revel in the fact there’s no one else quite like us, anywhere.)
When I say I have always had trouble finding my way, I mean I have always had trouble finding my way.
I try to be honest and upfront about my shortcomings, when I’m with people who may be affected by them. I start out by saying, “You know, I have a really poor sense of direction.” And they generally respond with something like, “Oh, I do, too.” Or, perhaps they say, “I understand what that’s like, my mother was always getting lost.” And then they move on.
No. I doubt you really do understand what it’s like. I have a really poor sense of direction. My brain’s internal GPS doesn’t work. Although I don’t get lost in my own house, I’ve stayed with folks who have larger houses for several days or a week and, by the time I leave, I still can’t find my way from the bedroom to the dining room without a lot of preliminary thought, and perhaps a couple of wrong turns along the way. A week or so ago, I spent the night in a hotel whose front desk clerk kindly upgraded my room to a “superior suite.” Big mistake. I spent half the night trying to find my way to the bathroom and ending up in the walk-in closet every time. Not kidding.
I regularly get lost in the rather small indoor mall a few miles away from my house. I’ve only been shopping there for 32 years. It has a Sears at one end, a Rural King at the other, and a soon-to-be-closing BonTon in the middle. Up and down the “nave” are smaller shops, my favorites being JoAnn Fabrics and Marshalls. I have to plan my expeditions there every time, so I don’t get lost, and I usually photograph my car’s position in the parking lot so I can find it when I leave. Like most people of my ilk, I am obsessive about using the same entrance and exit every time and have been reduced almost to quivering Jello status when “my” regular parking spot is occupied. How dare someone!
I could go on, but perhaps you’re starting to get the idea.
If there’s an upside, I guess it’s that my aforementioned family raised me with a hefty dose of humor and a healthy sense of the ridiculous. I don’t really mind being lost most of the time. There are maps, there is Google, and there are external GPS’s that mitigate my fears, outdoors at least. I’m not afraid of new places, and I don’t mind exploring, at least when I’m somewhere whose language is somewhat familiar (any of the Romance Languages), or whose alphabet and street signs I can read.
I’m not quite sure what I’d do if I was dropped into the middle of Ulaanbaatar and left to my own devices. Yes. Yes, I am sure. I wouldn’t move far from the place where I landed, lest I never get back to it, and I’d just hope to have brought a good book with me. Not every address in the world can be rendered as the equivalent of 123 Main Street, Anytown USA 12345, and the possibilities for disaster and dragons would, pretty much, keep me frozen in place. Much as I might enjoy the experience (and I probably would), I very likely wouldn’t do much touring, absent a knowledgeable and kind local guide.
Although I came to terms with my directional limitations many years ago, I’ve never stopped trying to find out why they exist. For years, I wrote it off to just the standard, “exceptionally poor sense of direction” business. When I developed a minor, but annoying, inner-ear disorder that occasionally leads to balance problems, I speculated that perhaps my internal “gyroscope” was off because of it, and that that was why I had such difficulty finding my way. But I never really found a satisfactory explanation or one which was backed up by much scientific study or replicable results.
Enter Dr. Giuseppe Iaria, a neuroscientist at the University of Calgary with a longstanding interest in the study of human orientation, spatial, and directional skills.
About 12 years ago, Dr. Iaria met what we might call his “patient zero,” a woman of overwhelming ordinariness; one who was perfectly healthy both mentally and physically. She had no brain damage, no neurological conditions, and nothing “wrong,” anywhere.
What she had was the unerring ability to get lost, every day, inside her own home and everywhere else she tried to go.
And all at once, Dr. Iaria changed the focus of his research to something he named Developmental Topographical Disorientation, or DTD. The “developmental” part indicates that it’s a lifelong condition and that it’s not the result of neurological trauma or injury of some sort.
Over the past ten years, Dr. Iaria and his group have published many studies of this phenomenon, and his team has put up a website which brings together much of his research, provides a forum for people with the problem to share their experiences, and offers a battery of tests which a person can take — the results of which feed into his research, and some of the “takers” of which, his team follow up with and make part of the studies.
I’ve taken the tests. Based on one’s point of view, I suppose one might say that I either passed with flying colors or failed spectacularly.
Part of the formal diagnostic process (which I have not been through for this condition) is an MRI. MRIs for patients with suspected DTD usually show that the parts of the brain, especially the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, do not act in sync as they do in a “normal” brain. Both these parts of the brain are important in orienting oneself to the environment, and current theory is that these “bad comms” between areas of the brain play a major role in the disorder. Dr. Arne Ekstrom, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California Davis, who also studies patients with DTD, thinks of it this way:
According to Ekstrom, his research, like Iaria’s, suggests that in patients with DTD, the problem with forming cognitive maps stems from a disconnection between the brain’s information highways. “If you want to try to get to New York and you have to transfer through the country but Chicago is shut down, it’s going to be much harder to get there,” he said. Patients with DTD may eventually find where they need to be, using other tools like GPS or finding landmarks they know, but it takes them significantly longer than someone with normal navigational skills.
There’s still much research to be done on this subject, and the search for a “cause” goes on. Current research centers on a genetic connection (I don’t see that in my family) and the studies continue.
In the meantime, I’m relieved to be part of another little Internet community, one that focuses not on politics or intellectual engagement, but which consists of folks with a bit of a problem reaching out to new friends and helping each other cope. There’s nothing wrong with finding out you’re not alone. I sort of like it. Perhaps one day, all those of us who participate in the online forum will decide to get together for an international meetup and shindig somewhere in the world.
The first challenge will be getting there. I can’t even.
Published in General
😁
Hi She. Fascinating post. Both my lovely bride and our daughter have similar navigational issues.
They are both brilliant people. But if you parachuted them into a strange place and gave them maps and satellite imagery, they’d still have to buy a house and stay there. They’d never get home. Theirs both involve directionality. I chuckle sometimes if I’m in the car with my daughter and her fiancé. She’ll be driving and he’s giving directions … “Ok. Next intersection you’re going to turn left… well wait … That’s a “you” right … it’s my left ….ummm … (pointing) THAT way”.
But while it is sometimes comic, it really isn’t funny. Both my daughter and my lovely bride had difficulty reading when they were young. For instance, letters like ‘b’ and ‘d’ or ‘g’ and ‘q’ or ‘m’ and ‘w’ were indistinguishable. Fortunately, Mrs Ekosj was able to share the tricks she had taught herself when she was young and helped our little girl work through that.
One thing that I’ve wondered about is that they are both almost obsessive rule-followers. And I wonder if that is an unintended offshoot of their navigational issues?
Really really interesting. Thanks for sharing your experience. As I understand it (and I’m not terribly well-read in the field), there are variants of the same thing that to involve left-right confusion, and possibly childhood dyslexia-type experiences. That’s not how mine works–I don’t have trouble with left and right–but yes, It sounds like a very similar thing. And I do expect that the rule-following may have something to do with it. I like a good “rule” and a nice “list” (with steps) myself!
So interesting.
I don’t have this inner map trouble, as a matter of fact, I’m good with a map, and finding my way. But in a mall or unfamiliar shopping area I do loose my car. Often.
Since I am aware of this glitch, one might think I could take control.
I try, but I still find myself pushing the key button in the parking lot. Beep-beep. Beep-beep.
I’ve been known to create a calendar entry with the parking address in my phone when parking on city streets.
Oddly enough, I am meticulous noting location in a parking garage. Go figure.
Thanks for sharing this. Brain stuff is so cool.
All the women in my family have broken radar – I especially hate the parking lot panic. I had a job where we moved to a big fancy building and occupied an entire floor. I used a bald head sticking out of a cubicle as a sign post that I was near my desk. Once, my friend and I raced to our philosophy class in college – I yelled I’ll beat you – I made so many wrong turns I was 15 min. late – the professor announced how nice it was that I decided to join them….I sold a jeep once and wrote in the ad, right turn brand new, never used….I’m glad there is a fancy name for this condition, but I wonder if more women are afflicted, hence, the comfort of asking of directions more than men? I’m also left handed and tend to go left a lot (except politically). I’m so used to it I just say to myself I just took the scenic route…
Very interesting. I’ve always had a superb sense of direction, but about two years tick-borne illness was rearing its ugly head and I got completely lost in a nearby town that I normally know very well.
I pulled over to the side of a road I normally know quite well, unable to figure out where I was. I pulled out my trusty map (I had a dumb phone at the time) and tried to orient myself. Even looking at the street signs around me, I could not figure out the map. I was nearly in tears before I was finally able to make sense of things and decide which direction I needed to go.
It was the most horrible, frustrating feeling.
I had to stop driving for several weeks until my head felt straight again. I was also dizzy, feverish, other symptoms, not just the brain fog thing, but the brain fog was neurological in nature.
Around that time I was also having trouble reading numbers, like phone numbers. I couldn’t read them and enter them into a phone correctly. And I was mixing up words, or forgetting them completely.
That is mostly gone away, or only a problem when I am very tired now.
How very interesting. Mrs. OS is also directionally challenged which gets interesting since on road trips she functions as our navigator (she doesn’t like to drive). While I seem to have a good sense of direction and can generally keep up well with which compass point we’ve been following, she easily gets turned around. Now that we have GPS and google maps on her phone we seldom have problems with this but when we used paper maps and the earlier versions of GPS it seemed her SOP was to have me turn left, drive a mile or so and then turn around, or vice versa. I eventually learned to just go with the flow as it did no good to get frustrated about something that was just inevitable.
Now, about the rule thing, Mrs. OS is obsessed with rules and can’t understand why everyone else isn’t too, especially me ;>) She seems to get comfort from knowing exactly what is expected of her in any situation while I like to be surprised at endless possibilities and the freedom to make random choices. Are the two connected? It’s an interesting supposition.
Also, she is an inveterate list maker, which comes in handy when preparing for any excursion. I’m willing to help with checking off the list but have no interest in creating them. I wonder if this has any connection? Are you, and others who suffer from DTD also obsessive about list making?
This condition, like most things, has advantages as well as disadvantages. Those lists, for instance have saved our bacon many times or at least have saved us from having to locate the nearest WalMart to purchase what we already have back home. And the wrong turns have lead to many out of the way discoveries that enhanced road trips and created fond memories for us. Things that don’t make the travel brochures and websites but show the creativity of what I call Real America.
I suffer from some variant of this problem as well. In my case, I suspect it is a learning problem, but it also goes with a cluster of other inabilities that make me wonder about the cause. I have no idea. Human beings are so adaptable that it would be hard to study this in a useful way. I got a kick out of this part of She’s story. Dr. Iaria must have been excited to find this woman:
My sister told me once that parents instill a sense of direction in their children the way they do most everything else–through language and teaching. When the child is learning to navigate the first three years of his or her life, the parents use language–“left” or “right” or “north” or “south” or “east” or “west” to describe the path. That communication programs the child’s navigation system.
I think there may be some truth to that, and it explains why it might go through generations. If the parents are not spatially oriented, they cannot “program” their children.
I also wonder if the parents’ programming their children that way opens up certain pathways in the child’s brain that would otherwise be closed. Sort of the way studying music works. Or studying a foreign language. The earlier a child’s brain pathways are opened to spatial relationships, the richer his or her life will be because of it.
That sounds very frightening. I’m glad that it’s mostly dissipated.
I’ll cop to the “horrible and frustrated” feeling, many, many times, and also thank my family, every time I say, “Oops, I went the wrong way,” for merely responding with a good-humored “Of course you did!” rather than banging on about what a fool I’ve made of myself . . . again . . ..
You and Mr. She must go out for a drink sometime. He’ll probably tell you about the time I led him to Milford, VT instead of Milford, NH. Or was it the other way around? I can’t remember. But it was a couple hundred miles the wrong way. I was reading a map at the time, and I’m sure it must have been faulty.
Like, and dittoes for this unintended consequence.
I think there’s something to this. It works in so many other areas (parents “opening up” their children to new experiences) that I don’t see why this wouldn’t be true as well.
Posting this fact, which I picked up somewhere, without editorial comment. There are a few I could make, but I’m not going to:
Something like 85% of the folks diagnosed, or very likely having DTD, are women.
MT,
I liked your comment, but really, I do not like it. At. All.
I’m glad things have calmed down. It is one thing to face a known challenge, but quite another to have such an unexpected challenge surface.
Not just spatial relationships. Using the brain early is good: digging little pathways for energy and information to go through, by using all of the senses.
I’m curious though, if the complexity of spatial relationships prepares the brain better for the other complexities and efficient integration.
As I said, Brain stuff is cool.
I have a variant of this I guess. If I don’t have a map, I can get lost easily. If I go to a place I have never been before and then try to trace my route back without a map, I can easily get lost because things that I notice on the way there are all turned around when I’m headed back. And also landmarks I was noticing on the way there, if I miss on the way back that then becomes disorienting. So I like maps. Analog or digital. I loved analog maps as a kid and spent lots of time pouring over them, so maps are friends.
Also, when I go to a new city and am going to be spending some time there, the first thing I do is go out, get lost and then find my way back to where I was before. I find that lots of fun. And directionality starts to sink into my mind in this new place.
I have gotten lost in buildings when there were what seemed like miles of endless, nondescript corridors, but then my mind starts to pick out what is not alike and I manage to orient myself after I’ve gone in a circle multiple times. I don’t mind doing that – the learning curve – especially if its a place I know I will have to come back to.
Brava! I find that not driving also contributes to this for me; I don’t store directional cues routinely. Not a problem at home/workplace/mall, but travel from point A —> B is a fraught business – describing routes for others. Thank goodness for MapQuest and the like.
From your description, not so much. You sound like you’re able to orient relatively well and quickly.
My brother and sister and I were on a trip to Europe with a rental car. We stayed in Amsterdam two nights. The first afternoon we parked on a street that seemed to be named something like “Einbahnstrasse” (which is German, I know, but I don’t remember the Dutch).
Turns out we were looking at the sign that said “One Way Street.” Lots of those in Amsterdam. Oops.
We eventually found it the next morning, before the parking police “booted” it, after an hour or two of walking the streets near our hotel, since we knew it was only a couple of blocks away…
I wonder if you ‘orient’ yourself naturally (like with the GPS in your head) after a while, or if you orient yourself based on remembered landmarks, or “rules.” I have to do the rules and landmarks thing, because the natural dead reckoning never kicks in.
Your story reminded me of a visit I had to make one day from Washington Hospital, where I worked, to Cecil Family Practice. It’s about twelve miles. I’d been there before, but only with someone else driving, so of course I was clueless, although I thought I knew where to go. (A tragic flaw of mine. If Shakespeare had thought of it, he’d probably have written twice as many plays.)
So, I set out at about 9:30AM, thirty minutes before the expected meeting. And I meandered, and meandered, through and around the country roads, for about an hour. At which point, I passed a Civil-War era farmhouse on the right-hand side of the road, and thought to myself: “Funny. That house looks identical to the one I saw about half an hour ago on the other side of the road. Must have been the standard construction style for the time.”
Yes.
Just quoting this to like it separately.
It’s really simple, She. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs wherever you go.
”But,” you scoff, “birds will descend from on high and eat the breadcrumbs.”
That is why you poison the breadcrumbs and follow the trail of dead birds back.
(That would have been funnier if I could have worked dead lawyers into it.)
Maybe? Because I have an excellent internal compass, and I positively enjoy assembling furniture and stuff like that according to diagrams — and I’m also terrible at following rules for their own sake.
Like your daughter and wife, I was considered a late bloomer as a reader, although I was only mildly dyslexic. In fact, my family is disproportionately composed of engineers with great spatial skills who are also mildly dyslexic.
I don’t get lost in the woods, the mountains, or the desert. Oh, I suppose I could, but I’m much less likely to than average.
I do sometimes get lost while driving for the chief reason that, while I might be able to navigate from Point A to Point B by dead reckoning, for some reason drivers are expected to obey all these traffic rules, like don’t go the wrong way down a one-way street, or don’t turn here, even if, if you could, you know you’d get right to where you were going.
Overall I’m a pretty good navigator, but I had a problem navigating during one trip to Australia and I don’t think my husband has ever fully forgiven me.
I don’t know if it was the driving on the left side of the road that warped my brain, but I got confused about where I was constantly. At one point I had Jerry turn in a certain direction and proceeded to send him down a one-way street. It was not pretty. He was sure, in that moment, that I was trying to kill him. I also got lost in one mall we visited a few times–multiple floors and a jillion (that’s a word you know) entrances. Jerry was faintly amused when he realized I had no idea where I was in the mall and waited to see if I could figure it out. I finally said I was not amused and to get me the heck out of there!
When I think of your condition, @she, it terrifies me. But I guess over time you’ve learned to compensate–at least most of the time. Isn’t the brain amazing?!
In elementary school, I had to have directions given to me in NSEW format, because I had that much trouble telling my right from my left, to the point where sometimes the only way I’d know was to pick up a pencil, write a while, and see if my writing looked like chicken scratch (left) or not (right). In childhood activities where left and right were crucial, I’d sharpie L and R onto the backs of my hands — there was no other way. I could beat pretty much any other child at NSEW navigation, though.
What do the words in your diagram mean?
“Here be dragons.”
The normal old translation was “Here be dragons,” although an updated version might sound slightly different.
You mean the picture on the OP? They mean “Here Be Dragons.” It’s a (largely) apocryphal tag line that is often used to describe the words on the borders of Medieval maps. In reality, they only appear on one or two of them. But the idea has always been that, when you got to the boundaries of the natural world (fell off the edges as it were) you would end up in a directionless and confusing world of dangerous beasties, of which dragons and serpents made up the greatest numbers. Like a lot of the stories about how stupid, unscientific, and close-minded the medievals are, it’s largely untrue, but it makes a good story, and I thought it fit with the theme of the post! (What’s behind the words is a Medieval map of a portion of Denmark).
Yes, more Golden Lions there than dragons.
I had a suspicion…….seems like the ones I’ve heard of personally were of the feminine persuasion. But of course we now KNOW there is NO Difference ;>)
Thanks so much. It’s perfect!