left–right processing weakness

[TheBigBlue]

Question for the group: does anyone else mix up left and right, especially under pressure? 🤔

I've noticed that unless I slow down and reason it out, my first instinct is often incorrect. It doesn't feel intuitive for me - it feels like something I have to calculate.
A typical comment from my driving instructor: "Turn right here ... the other right!" 😅

Just wondering how common this is here.

[lowbudgetTV]

Totally.

I think of my brain as always on, always thinking about something. Sometimes it's nonsense, sometimes its important. I've been experiencing this a lot at my job recently, where having conversations is awkward because I have to think and concentrate a bit harder.

Directions require not only understanding but then, i don't know, synthesis? You have to listen, understand and then point out the correct direction. Brains know its a direction, but there's only two, so it's easy to switch them up. Meanwhile, ironically, I'm very good at approximating the cardinal directions. North? I have what's essentially a satellite image in my brain of my surroundings, like Google Maps, and can figure it out. But right/left is weird, you have to place yourself. Now that I write it out, maybe it's because I'm a very disassociative person; I don't feel present in my body. Takes longer to figure out positions relative to me!

[Blueberry]

does anyone else mix up left and right, especially under pressure?

Sometimes, yes. Where I tend to mix them up is when doing physical exercises. So, the instructor says e.g. "put your right foot on your left ankle" and it takes me so much time to figure out what goes where that the instructor has probably moved on... I also once remember having to look very long and carefully at my shoes to figure out which one would go on which foot. I was inpatient at the time. My trauma T suggested I had probably been in a very small inner child at the time.

Also check this thread https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=17082.msg158515#msg158515