Parking Lots

[Negeen]

I haate parking lots because I always forget where I park....

[Danslatete]

Me too, I have a piglet ariel topper and a bright yellow car so you would think it would be easy to find, but I do easily lose it.

I try to park on a row end or by the trolley shelters.

[Negeen in reply to Danslatete]

I work at the mall so I'm always dealing with a vast parking lot that's filled with cars. It's such a pain.

[Negeen in reply to Danslatete]

Parking on the row end helps me too.

[barny1]

I bet you're hopeless with maps too

[Negeen in reply to barny1]

Oh my god yes.

[Hidden]

Brilliant with maps sense of direction but finding the car ( or keys ) I am hopeless

[Negeen in reply to Hidden]

Nooo way. Weird. You'd think the same part of the brain controls both.

[Hidden]

I also can put something down 30 seconds later I can't find it

[Negeen in reply to Hidden]

Lol mee too.

[nemo_really in reply to Hidden]

30 seconds? ... Luxury! (Has to be said in a York-Shire accent )

Of course, i suspect they might have been guilty of slight exaggeration whereas, unfortunately, we're not. Still, you try and tell ordinary folk and doctors that, and they don't believe you.

youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wH...(Not working as expected?)

[iforget]

It's a good job I don't drive any more because I wouldn't remember I had taken the car

I love the parking facility at the new mall they built for the London Olympics...it has signs telling you were is the best place to park for the major stores in the mall and also has a number plate recognition system and so when you get the parking area you can punch in your number plate and it will find your car and show you how to get to it...

Putting the details into your phone or writing the level and row number on the inside of your arm can help...no good writing it on your hand in case you wash your hands before you return to the car park.... herein speaks the voice of experience

[Negeen in reply to iforget]

Lol u crack me up iforget... Wait is that just an american saying? It means ur really funny!! How come you've never shared ur real name?

[iforget]

"Crack me up" is pretty universal I think...

I choose not to share my real name online to protect my privacy ...

[Negeen in reply to iforget]

Okay, i'm gonna take a few guesses you can tell me if im right... Shannon, Cindy, Sharon, hannah, elisabeth, joanne.... Any of these?

[iforget]

You were actually fairly close with a couple... One was the name my parents considered (but rejected) and another was the name a very dear friend used to call me...and it stuck but none of these are on my passport

[Hidden]

There's a smart phone App for that

I duly downloaded it an set it up. You can take a picture where you park and it logs the exact gps position. It will even guide you back.

Haven't remembered to use it yet!

Dev

[nemo_really in reply to Hidden]

"Haven't remembered to use it yet!"

And therein lies the problem with the myriad of notebooks and plethora of apps that I have c collected over the years!

[iforget in reply to Hidden]

That is the problem isn't it...until it becomes habit to use a particular strategy (ap, alert,process) it may as well be a fish in a jar of moonbeams

[Negeen in reply to iforget]

What in the world is "a fish in a jar pf moonbeams"?

[iforget in reply to Negeen]

Nonsense... Nothing useful LOL

[nemo_really in reply to iforget]

Absolutely, and medics being unable to understand this is my biggest beef with the current state of rehabilitation. Why is it that so many specialists (not to mention the general population) think that giving somebody a list of potentially useful strategies is sufficient to release somebody back into the wild? As you say, habituation is key and, IME, people with memory and attentional problems are very poorly placed to habituate anything except being disorganized and forgetful.

People like me are the reason we don't allow high-powered rifles in the UK - if I had a bullet for everyone who said "Why don't you write it down in a notebook?", the population would have been markedly depleted by now!

[Negeen in reply to Hidden]

Really? Noo way. That's so cool! But i've never heard of it.

[RogerCMerriman]

I'm said before that part of my brain is uneffected, my spacial reasoning is and always been off the chart, but can I loose keys and wallets etc, though in fairness I was fairly good at doing that before.

[Negeen in reply to RogerCMerriman]

How is your spatial reasoning good if you're losing keys and wallets.

[RogerCMerriman in reply to Negeen]

very differnent parts of the brain, spacial reasoning is how you work out, where your going with a Map, or moving around large buildings such as Malls/hospitals etc. where I have a map and shape of these buildings, once i've been there.

My short term memory is woeful so I quite often don't rember where I've put down keys/wallet etc.

[nemo_really in reply to RogerCMerriman]

Yep. This is one of those other difficulties that people have in understanding that there is a problem ... "If you can remember/do This you *must* be able to remember/do That!".

I once had to go to a company site just south of Paris. I remembered at the last minute to actually plan the route, printed out the instructions and got my map of France & satnav. Naturally, I left them behind and didn't realise until I was actually in Calais. So I navigated just from the image I had in my mind of the route, avoiding the direct route through Paris and going in from the flank. No problem - fortunately I did have the name of the village I was going to written down and my wet-finger navigation was good enough to get near enough for it to be signposted. Amusingly, I had a far less stressful journey than a few others who used their satnavs.

Another place (apart from forgetting the map, etc) the difference between visual, verbal and prospective memory shows up is that although I could see the map as a structure, I had no idea what the place names were on it (apart from Paris) - I even had to keep referring to the paper with the village's name, because I'd forget it within a few minutes or even seconds, and not be sure if it was correct even when I did see it. However, if it weren't for this ability to see things, I have no idea how I'd survive in the real world. I get by as an engineer because I can visualise systems and understand how they work even though I can't actually remember the names of the parts. But, from my observations of seemingly unimpaired people, I'd rather be able to do this than be able to remember their names and not understand ... of course, I'd like to remember the names as well and be organised, but such is not my lot and I'm grateful I didn't lose more in my road accident.

[Hidden]

I can't drive due to my eye probłems but can empathise about not knowing where you are! I can't read maps.