#i cant confidentally place our apartment in the correct spot inside that rectangle and i DEFINITELY cant map the roads inside it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theygender · 3 months ago

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I'm being so serious with this. Recently I was watching an Elden Ring playthrough by this guy who's really good at the game and while he was reassuring his viewers that they could navigate some cave without getting turned around he recommended to keep a mental map of it in their head. And I was like. Oh wow. Making a mental map of a place in your head? That must be some real next level pro-gamer shit that's so impressive damn

But. Are you telling me that the ability to make a mental map of places I've been was just supposed to come free with my brain? And it DIDN'T??

Trying to look into what might be up with my directional/spatial issues and I just learned about a condition called developmental topographical disorientation which is apparently defined by patients getting lost bc they can't picture a "cognitive map" of familiar places in their head

.........Is that real??

Can y'all like. Picture a mental map of areas you're familiar with and then like. Use that map to figure out how to get to a place from where you are??

#im trying so hard to make a map of a place in my head rn #i asked my gf about it bc i kind of didnt believe it. surely i was misunderstanding what cognitive map means some how #but no she said she can picture maps of places shes familiar with and those maps are how she knows how to get from one place to another #(although she said she doesnt Always use a mental map bc if she goes somewhere often enough she just has the roads memorized)#and like. i cannot fathom. she said she could even picture a mental map between our apartment and the place im pet sitting at #i go there FOUR TIMES A DAY and i cant do that. i cant even confidently point in the direction the womans house is #im trying to make a mental map between the apartment and some places i know and i just. cant #like. theres my apartment. the apartment is in an apartment complex which is. vaguely rectangular?#i cant confidentally place our apartment in the correct spot inside that rectangle and i DEFINITELY cant map the roads inside it #and then theres like... walmart. somewhere on a diagonal from us probably?#and my clients house is probably on a different diagonal #i dont know what direction either of them are in relative to each other OR our apartment #everything outside our apartment is just kinda fuzzy. are people able to like. picture roads and how they connect and stuff??#i told her i could probably make a map of our apartment but ive been thinking about it more and. i dont think i could even do that #like i could tell you roughly where the doors are in each room. but i dont really have an understanding of how the rooms fit together #just the other day i was standing in the laundry closet randomly musing about what might be on the other side of the wall #and she was like its the bathroom and i was like are you sure?? how do you know that?#anyway im rambling now but. holy shit this probably explains so much #so other people DONT have to memorize step by step where to turn to get from point A to point B?#and their innate sense of direction is not based on running quick calculations based on their memory of those steps #but in fact on a mental map that they can just like. reference?#im not just uniquely bad at Memorizing The Steps and Turning The Memorized Steps Into Directions #its actually just that other people are able to conjure up an entire MAP of places theyre familiar with in their minds eye??#big if true #holy shit #ive got two confirmations already from my gf and a mutual but chat can anyone else confirm??

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