I was telling my Physical Therapist about this subject at my last PT appointment. I used to be great at orientation. As a teenager, I loved maps, but I almost never needed one. I could find my way around quite easily by simply knowing which way the road went. I could build entire architecture projects in my head, a crucially important visualization technique that allowed me to understand how the various parts of any of the assemblies I worked with related to each other. I believe this was an outgrowth of my need to synthesize data without being able to write anything down, a side effect of dysgraphia.
Meniere’s has taken this away from me. The need to reinvent myself from the ground up with the systemic demands that a malfunctioning balance mechanism places on me included in the mix, has left me incapable of mapping direction any longer. I simply don’t have the free cognitive space within which to build complex structures including being able to remember where I’m going without a mapping program telling me which way I should go. I get lost quite easily now, apparently like most English speakers do according to the data discussed in the TED talk. Maybe it is time to learn a second language, one with ordinate directions built into it. Maybe that would help?
