LOST EVERY DAY

A medical condition leads some people to get lost every day of their lives.

- Aaron Millar

Sharon Roseman was five years old when her world changed forever. She was playing Blind Man's Bluff-a game of tag in which the "it" person is blindfolded-with friends outside her house. When she removed her blindfold, she couldn't recognize where she was. “My street was not my street, my house was not my house," she says. "I was in this totally unfamiliar place that I had never seen before, and it scared me to death." It was only the beginning. From that moment on, Roseman has been lost every day of her life.

Lost Even in Familiar Places

Such a turn of events might sound like an episode of The Twilight Zone. But Roseman's story is true, and she is not alone in her bizarre and frightening experience. As an adult living in Denver, Colorado, in 2008, Roseman was diagnosed with a rare and newly discovered condition called Developmental Topographical Disorientation. DTD is a disorder that dramatically affects people's abilities to navigate their environment. “It's almost as if somebody picks up the entire world, turns it, and sets it back down,” Roseman explained to the New York Times in 2013.

The condition typically first appears in childhood. People with DTD have no underlying brain condition or injury. Yet they experience severe orientation problems all their life and get lost even in places where they spend a lot of time, like their home and school. When Roseman would check on her own babies in the night, she would frequently bump into walls, not realizing they were there.

Dr. Giuseppe Iaria of the University of Calgary in Canada is credited with first identifying DTD. He confirms that odd as it sounds people with DTD have no underlying neurological conditions or brain damage. He thinks genetic factors are likely responsible for this malady.