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Mary Pieper / The Globe Gazette via AP
Scarecrows are known for their twisted sense of humor.
In an age of GPS devices and online maps, many of us are still fearful of getting lost -- actually, our dependence on all our getting-there gadgets has made some of us even more fearful of losing our way, especially if alone or at night.
That strange location can be continents away or a couple of towns over. Or even a corn maze, which recently happened to a Massachusetts family, who were so spooked they called 911 for rescue.
When you search the words "fear of getting lost," you'll find some sites claiming this is called "mazeophobia." But that term doesn't appear in any medical dictionary or scientific literature searches, and it's not mentioned in any of the psychological textbooks used by Luana Marques, a clinical psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who treats people with and does research on anxiety disorders.
Fear of getting lost may not be a clinical diagnosis, but Marques says a patient might complain of a fear of driving and a fear of unknown places.
"What that person is really afraid of is being in an uncomfortable situation that triggers the fight-or-flight reaction," Marques explains, referring to the alarm response that can make your heart race, palms sweat, hands shake and breathing quicken.
But fear doesn't only affect you physiologically; it can also cloud your judgment.
Once the alarm response is activated, you lose some ability in the rational part of your brain, explains Marques. "That doesn't mean you can't make rational decisions, but your ability to think clearly and logically in the moment becomes less and less," she says.
If a fear is significantly interfering with your life, cognitive behavioral therapy can help you get over it, Marques suggests. Otherwise, she says, the rule of thumb is to "approach and not avoid" the situation. Take small steps to expand your comfort zone, so it makes you "comfortably uncomfortable," Marques recommends.
That may mean road trips armed with maps, printouts of directions and your favorite person on speed dial who is not directionally challenged. Or doing a dry run to a destination, when possible.
It's no guarantee that you'll never get lost, but at least, you'll wrack up more successful experiences in finding your way.
Readers, are you afraid of getting lost -- and have you gone to great lengths to avoid it?
Related:
- Always getting lost? It may be in your genes
- When you can't find your way home
- TODAY Moms: We all need help navigating the corn maze of motherhood
Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.
Leave a Comment:
In the past, I have lived in two other cities and managed to navigate my way around without the use of a GPS - which hadn't yet been in use. I find my reliance on a map to be far superior to other alternatives in getting from point A to point B. Society's reliance on technology, such as GPS and other devices, is dumbing down the human brain and impeding our ability to problem solve. We want a GPS to tell us how to reach our destination; we want music, mobile web and email services at our finger-tips because we can't bear a little peace in our day; we want to be able to pop a pill so we feel better; televisions in our cars . . . I could go on and on. Personally, I would like to stop the world and get - - - for a little peace and quiet - ah, what price tranquility!
Gas was cheaper MB . I too have done the map thing and will again if need be but GPS rocks.
Also, if you're out in a rural area, there isn't always a map; but there is always GPS. It has its limitations, but GPS is wonderful if you are lost. Which I often am, because I have no, and I mean no, sense of direction whatsoever. GPS has been great!
I have driven forest service roads since I started driving, and before that, rode them with my father fairly often. I don't get lost. I don't use a GPS, and I barely look at maps while I'm driving them. I love exploring new places, and I don't panic when I miss my turn or end up not quite where I need to be. I enjoy driving, and believe that the process of getting to your destination is half of the adventure.
Do your prep work beforehand, and you will decrease that "lost panic" feeling. Do your homework ahead of time; learn about the area you are heading into. Be prepared; not only with some extra food and water (either on foot or in the car!), but in a vehicle with blankets, etc if you are driving somewhere new and/or way out of your way. Spend time looking at maps, learn how to read various maps. Lastly, learn the proper techniques for getting yourself "unlost"; pay attention to how you got where you are so you can trace back, and in addition, learn how to use the 8-point rule- on foot when hiking, this means you pick a home point once you realize you're lost. Then, you set out in each available direction for 5 minutes to see if you recognize anything (or are getting where you need to get towards), if you don't, you return to the home point and go a different direction. There may not be 8 directions to go (the 8 point name comes from using the compass directions when you're literally in the middle of nowhere), but the idea is the same. Lastly, don't panic when you miss a turnoff like a freeway exit. Go around the block, make a detour off the next exit, etc. You will get there, it may just take you 5 minutes longer.
My advice is to take a deep breath, and relax.
GPS is great, but they can make you look extremely stupid when you let them take control and cease using your common sense. This happened to me on a date with my ex-girlfriend and it was extremely painful to watch. I looked like the dumbest person on the planet b/c GPS stopped working and only my gf knew the way. I was ...useless.
What all of the posters here have missed is the word, "irrational". All the maps, pre-planning, and GPS's in the world would make no difference. A mental issue isn't that easily brushed aside. You have to face it, alone, without any of those aids, and prevail. I know because I had it and beat it. Since I was a kid I've hunted, trapped, and fished, many times in places I had never been before and always found my way back and was never afraid, but there's something about getting lost on a limited access highway, missing your exit on an unfamiliar cloverleaf, that always terrified me. Don't know why, it's just the way it was.
GPS ? What's that?
Global positioning system ..aka garmin tom tom etc...
I am one of the founding members of 'See American unintentionally Society'. Getting lost can be scary in a strange town but the memories remain and I remember my mistakes. Had I not gotten lost, I would never have seen the places I have seen and I would never have learned quickly the lay of the land. I can always turn around and trace my steps. Life is full of wrong turns and new experiences. Life is great.
Amen, I want to buy a house next year, and I've found some GREAT neighborhoods by getting lost (or as I call it "not found.")
AND the homes are often cheaper because they are off the beaten path!!!
I was totally anti-GPS. I believe map reading is a skill and we should ensure that people are able to do it.
However, I tend to only know one way to get somewhere. So when I want to take a detour due to traffic or construction, it can be an issue. This wasn't a problem in Indiana, my home state, as most roads are straight at at right angles to each other. If you needed to avoid something, you just made a big box.
But I now live in the DC metro and these roads DO NOT MAKE ANY SENSE. Diagonal roads, entrances and exits, etc. I mean they have an intersection in VA called "7 corners" because there are SEVEN CORNERS AT THE INTERSECTION. Please tell me how this makes sense??? I guess the goal is to CAUSE accidents.
Anyway, I digress...
I still map out my initial route (I need to see it the ENTIRE route, not one step at a time.) But I have found that GPS is useful when you need to find an alternate route. Provided you can get that crazy b#tch to stop telling you to go back to the route you're trying to avoid. "Make a legal u-turn whenever possible." Every time she says that in her GPS voice, I want to throw her out the window. But I don't because she's in my phone, and I need that....
But really, I think fear of getting lost is tied to inability to read a map... I was never SCARED, even before GPS, even my first time riding the subway in New York (and I was alone) I can read a map, so I'm never lost, I'm just "not found yet," lol. So perhaps we should work on that skill....
And I have to say, I will never SOLELY trust GPS. The last two times I tried to find an "alternate route" I couldn't get a signal. So I ended up returning to the route I was trying to avoid (after burning both time and gas.)
I'm sure it would be better if I had a real GPS, but this has led me not to trust them. I really prefer to print a Google Maps map (not the directions, but the actual map, so I can see the streets I should be passing as I approach the road I need. I usually print several views, so I can have close ups.)
A print out of the actual terrain from Google Earth helps, if I can get a good clear printout, but directions from Google and Mapquest and places like that have let me down. Just the directions from my house to the interstate on ramp are ridiculous, and that's about a mile and a half! I got so lost in Indianapolis with on-line map directions going to Riley Children's Hospital that a police officer finally took pity on me at a gas station and gave me a police escort across town. (Riley is a very special place in this state, that helped make him extra sympathetic.)
Give me a map and I can go anyplace, but I get terribly confused with even a simple set of directions, anything more than go straight to the big tree and turn left, and that's scary. Part of the problem is that I have a terrible memory, and the rest of the problem is that I get all turned around with all the rights and lefts and pretty soon I can't even figure out my way back to where I started.
Of course there aren't maps to go everywhere so then I'm stuck. I don't have a GPS of my own, but I was pretty impressed with the one my daughter and I took on a trip recently. It navigated us to and from a large city a hundred miles away and took us all over that city for two days. Way cool.
Another time, however, I was with a lady going to an address about twenty miles from home, and we weren't three miles from home when it told us to turn right when we KNEW needed to turn left. We still knew exactly where we were at that point, so this made no sense at all! There wasn't even a road to turn right (south), and the obvious left turn took us straight north a mile or two to the highway that took us straight east to finish the trip. Kind of burst my bubble about trusting a GPS 100%.
I don't think I'd ever go into a corn maze bigger than about five paths, something that might be intended for six year olds because I know how stupid I am about getting turned around. Always have been. It took me a week to figure out the building I work in when I was first hired, and it's a building six year olds CAN get around in, a small elementary school.
I walked around in O'Hare airport (huge, international) for what seemed like three hours one time, ending back up at the same place all the time, the place I started at. I'd traveled 8,000 miles with a group, but now I couldn't figure out the last leg of the trip on my own.
My own stupidity never fails to astound and annoy me. And the really, really scary part of it is that I don't seem to learn from my directional mistakes. It takes forever to imbed a new place in my mind.
I'm not able to get around well these days, so now I ask for wheel chair assistance in large airports, and the young guys who pushed me are amazingly kind, and I arrive at my destination with no worries.
There is this old thing called a compass...well, you really don't even need one of those. If you can tell east from west, you can find north and south. (If the sun rises on your right and sets on your left, then you are facing north. Reverse the rising and setting and you're facing south.) Then if you know where you came from and where you want to go, you can at least get back.
I like to get in the car and just drive in the countryside. Many times I've been out in the middle of nowhere and decided I was ready to go home. Using the information above I've always managed to get back to either my area or some place nearby...then get back 'home'.
This may sound a bit crazy, but I think I also have some kind of built in 'radar', if you will, because, so far in my life, I have never been lost...and, yes, I've lived in foreign countries and visited major cities only one time. Who knows, I'm probably part bloodhound...I consider it one of God's gifts.
P.S. to all...When all else fails you can ask directions. The only time I went with a friend who insisted on using her GPS we went nearly 30 miles out of our way.
I was on the move for many years, and when I went to a new place,
I would kind of get lost on purpose. It's a great way to figure out the
streets in the area, and to see the sights. But, gas was cheaper
then, and I wasn't as eco-conscience as I am now.