I am TERRIBLE with directions. Even if someone gives me the simplest map, I'll always find a way to wind up where I'm not supposed to. It's a talent of mine, a very bad one. Even if I do something as simple as miss a turn, a combination of rage and anxiety takes over me. My heart starts pounding, I grip the steering wheel hard, and I start cussing myself out. I guess I'm just worried I'll end up on the highway or freeway and not be able to turn around again, and then just get even more lost.

Does this happen to you guys? Do you find solutions that make it easier? I normally enter in directions on Google Maps (my car doesn't have a GPS), it helps usually, but again, I cannot guarantee that I'll find the place I'm supposed to be. I feel like my fear of being lost is only escalating, doesn't help that I'll be moving out of my small hometown and going to a huge city in less than a year...

The first time I'm going somewhere, I always read through all the directions ahead of time, write them out on a paper and tape it somewhere easy to read, have my phone read out the directions as I'm driving, and simply pull over if I suspect I'm lost to recalibrate. I also leave an extra 20 minutes early. Living in a big city (San Diego) it really really helps.

Yess, I'm terrible with things like this. I can mess up even the simplest of directions if I'm not extremely familiar with a place. I strike out really confident and then get lost and realize that I'm a grown woman who can't even navigate somewhere properly, it feels terrible. I don't drive so I don't have much advice, but I understand how much it sucks :

I just put the directions in my phone, and I can't go wrong when it's shouting at me "Turn right on this street in 20 feet." "Turn right on this street in 10 feet." Turn right on this street in 5 feet." "Turn right on this street NOW." Like omg, yes, I get it. Turn on that street. haha

I don't mind getting lost so much though, unless it's night. If it's in the day, it's basically just a little adventure. If it's at night, it's like the start of a horror movie and I freak out.

Lol, you're just like me. I'm almost an adult, but I've lived in this town my whole life. I should know it by now, but apparently I don't! It feels horrible.

ugh yes, this is one of the main reasons I don't like driving. it's so hard because you can't just stop and think at an intersection or while you're driving down a road. I refuse to drive in a city I've never been to before unless someone else is with me.

Yeah same here. It's so scary to go to a new place alone, even if it's not a huge city.

The idea of getting lost terrifies me, it's pretty much only happened to me once but I feel like it's a genuine fear. So I always get OCDish about making sure I have the right directions written somewhere when I go anywhere unfamiliar now, and I check them like a bunch of times.

I lived in San Diego not too long ago and I did the exact same thing. I lived in Palm Desert prior to living in San Diego, although I had to move back to PD not too long after I got there. But I'm terrible with directions and I'm pretty sure San Diego is a cluster fuck of freeways. Being from small towns and cities like Beaumont, Ca and Palm Desert, Ca where there is only a single freeway in and out freeways are not my friend by any means. Yet, even with all my different forms I got lost if I didn't have someone with me who knew where they were going. It doesn't help that I go by landmarks for direction rather than streets.

Yep, I couldn't find my way out of a wet paper bag tbh. I get lost allllll the time. It took me an entire week WITH A GPS to finally not take the wrong highway on my way home from uni when I first started attending. There are a lot of splits onto 2 separate highways and I'd ALWAYS choose the wrong ones. I also have a lot of trouble reading maps, I find it difficult to orient myself in the right direction.

There was also this one time I managed to leave a train station (in Germany) without realising I'd left and ended up 15 minutes away on foot by the time I figured out I was completely lost lmao. When I finally found my way back I was greeted by a very upset exchange partner and her mum who'd rushed over to the station, they thought I'd been left behind in a different city. This was on the 2nd day I was there lol, I felt awful for causing so much trouble so soon.