Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dad is an electrical engineer and since I know how his brain works in order to be one, and you say your sister has a PhD I don't think she has a learning disability like you mean.

I wonder if it's connected to nerves. Kind of like when a woman is uncomfortable with her sexual partner she clenches and can't relax so thinks there's something physically wrong with her body. There is, but not in the way she thinks.

I wonder if all your sister's car accidents were ways of trying to get out of having to drive.

My daughter is very smart and when she was 13 and begging to go out without me, I would say "Tell me HOW you would get to the mall". It was a 20 minute walk that literally involved ONE turn. She couldn't tell me. I'd say "visualize our building. You walk out the front door. The gas station is across the street. Now to get to the mall do you turn right or left?" and she couldn't tell me. Even though she knew. I pushed her through this and now she can explain how to get anywhere in our city.

I think your sister might be very scared of driving and that is causing her to not be able to think about directions. She's a grown adult - tell her you've thought about it and whatever she wants to do about driving, it's her choice and you support her, and you're sorry about how much you teased her as kids. Then DROP IT.

Interesting connections about engineers and driving. My mom worked in engineering for 35+ years and honestly does not know left from right. She also has zero sense of direction even when driving in the town that she's lived in since 1989! My dad also was an engineer and is a terrible driver. He tailgates people frequently and does not realize when he's speeding. He almost lost his license back in the 1990s because he had so many points.

Anonymous wrote:My dad is an electrical engineer and since I know how his brain works in order to be one, and you say your sister has a PhD I don't think she has a learning disability like you mean.

I wonder if it's connected to nerves. Kind of like when a woman is uncomfortable with her sexual partner she clenches and can't relax so thinks there's something physically wrong with her body. There is, but not in the way she thinks.

I wonder if all your sister's car accidents were ways of trying to get out of having to drive.

My daughter is very smart and when she was 13 and begging to go out without me, I would say "Tell me HOW you would get to the mall". It was a 20 minute walk that literally involved ONE turn. She couldn't tell me. I'd say "visualize our building. You walk out the front door. The gas station is across the street. Now to get to the mall do you turn right or left?" and she couldn't tell me. Even though she knew. I pushed her through this and now she can explain how to get anywhere in our city.

I think your sister might be very scared of driving and that is causing her to not be able to think about directions. She's a grown adult - tell her you've thought about it and whatever she wants to do about driving, it's her choice and you support her, and you're sorry about how much you teased her as kids. Then DROP IT.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she has ADD? She is not able to concentrate on what is important- the directions - because she gets lost in other stimuli. She can hyper focus on one thing - her work - but at the expense of all other information. In a car, that gets you killed.

Regardless of why - disability, bad memory, anxiety, lack of Interest, She does not need to drive. Uber, taxi, public transit. Bike. Walk. She can get where she Needs to be. She is an adult and you don’t need to encourage her to do anything.

Anonymous wrote:My dad is an electrical engineer and since I know how his brain works in order to be one, and you say your sister has a PhD I don't think she has a learning disability like you mean.

I wonder if it's connected to nerves. Kind of like when a woman is uncomfortable with her sexual partner she clenches and can't relax so thinks there's something physically wrong with her body. There is, but not in the way she thinks.

I wonder if all your sister's car accidents were ways of trying to get out of having to drive.

My daughter is very smart and when she was 13 and begging to go out without me, I would say "Tell me HOW you would get to the mall". It was a 20 minute walk that literally involved ONE turn. She couldn't tell me. I'd say "visualize our building. You walk out the front door. The gas station is across the street. Now to get to the mall do you turn right or left?" and she couldn't tell me. Even though she knew. I pushed her through this and now she can explain how to get anywhere in our city.

I think your sister might be very scared of driving and that is causing her to not be able to think about directions. She's a grown adult - tell her you've thought about it and whatever she wants to do about driving, it's her choice and you support her, and you're sorry about how much you teased her as kids. Then DROP IT.

Anonymous wrote:My sister doesn't drive and she is 35 years old. This is affecting her life in multiple negative ways, especially during quarantine.

She got her license at 16 and had a terrible sense of direction. She actually got lost driving to our grandma's house, which was an hour away, and a place where she'd been driven weekly her entire life. My parents would make her drive back to grandma's every weekend after she got her license and...she seemed incapable of remembering where to turn or what to do. We would laugh and she would cry. My parents made her get a summer job and drive herself there, and she got lost over and over again that summer just driving between the mall and home. This was of course in the days before Sat nav. She also repeatedly damaged the car going in and out of the garage and we think she hit another car in the parking lot at work. My brother and I were really mean about this and my parents were angry and frustrated, but now I wonder if she had something really wrong, more than just a bad sense of direction.

My sister has a ph d. in electrical engineering now. She is brilliant and functional in all other ways, but refuses to drive because she says she knows she will have an accident. I think she should take lessons with a patient teacher and try to figure out this important life skill, but I'm not sure. She got so upset the last time we spoke about it and said she thinks she has an actual disability that manifests in her difficulty with driving and directions. Does anybody know anything about this as a possible condition or symptom, or have you known anyone like this?

Anonymous wrote:Does she own a car? If you are coming from another country, she would need to own a car for you to drive. If she owns a car, this story makes no sense that she stopped driving years ago because the first thing you would do it not buy a car or if you had a traumatic moment, you sell the car. So the idea that she can’t drive but maintains car payments and insurance and maintenance and such on a car seems weird. If she is going to rent a car for you, not sure that is much safer than masks in an Uber, but could she use the money she would have spent renting a car, which is absurdly expensive, to at least hire a specific person - maybe a neighbor or friend - who would drive her.

Something feels odd about the new details.

Anonymous wrote:Probably anxiety. But, also it's impossible to get lost now that every phone has GPS. I think you should just leave her alone, and be more supportive.

Anonymous wrote:It's not a disability, and as a disabled person I find your post really rude.

But it sounds like your family all ganged up on her and were bullies about it and it turned into a phobia. Congratulations, hope you feel guilty.