Anyone seen PunkyKat?

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I was looking at some old threads in regards to AS and long-term goals, college, etc and came across a poster with the handle of PunkyKat who has a passion for exotic and small animals and a goal of becoming a vet despite her social and academic difficulties. While reading some of the back-and-fourth conversation, it dawned on me that I had that same type of black-and-white, strong willed, I-can-do-it-even-others-say-I-can't type of thinking when I was in my early 20s.

I am a bit concerned because according to her last post, http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt149188.html, she left WP because of others telling her she should re-consider her lofty goal of going to vet school. She also posted a link to another thread when people were saying horrid things about her and how some of the posters in the trash talking forum even referred to killing her as a mercy killing.

Now, I'm really worried because she hasn't posted on here in eight months so she must have taken it to heart when people criticized her and really meant it when she said she was leaving WP. Is she okay? I want to know that she's still alive and getting help. I do NOT find her annoying but find her fascination for small animals to be rather endearing and would geniunely like to see her somehow achieve her goals with help and support.

I see so much of her strong willed steak in myself and am rather concerned that she may have taken other people's criticism too seriously and done something awful to herself. Please tell me that she's still alive and well! Please :

Both of your usernames bear an uncanny resemblance to one another... (cue suspicion)

LOL- No, I'm not her despite the "Kat" the end of my name. I'm actually a bit afraid of lizards and about 12 years older than her. I do like small furry animals though.........

I've been wondering about that myself. Honestly, I feel horrible about the way people treated her.

HOWEVER...

She had a nasty habit of asking questions or responding to things, and then she'd totally unload when would answer her. And it could be totally innocent stuff, too. You could just be nice to her and she'd bite your head off. At one point she asks why people are so mean to her, and people would honestly and gently explain what it was she did that upset them. For that she'd go off on people like nothing she ever did was wrong.

I figure underneath it all she has a heart of gold, and I do feel sorry for her. But she needs help. I think more of us should have made a better effort to show empathy. But you can only expect just so much from other people. You can't blame people for being upset when they're trying to be nice and you treat them all like dirt.

For what it's worth, I'd love to see her again. I hope she hasn't hurt herself. Someone who thinks and acts that way is in desperate need of counseling and therapy. I guarantee if she did she'd relate better to other people and get more of a positive response from others.

Maybe she has a classic case of PDA- read more here- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathologic ... _avoidance
Of course, you can't diagnose her on-line and of course, I'm not a diagnostician. I think I have some elements of PDA myself but I was a lot worse when I was in my early 20s- I thought I knew it all and came unglued when people criticized me. (Didn't know about AS back then though).

I think I can understand how she's feeling and do think her heart is in the right place but she will probably need some guidance and some TLC rather than criticism in helping her get a handle on things. I'm just worried that she may have gone off the edge- Does anyone here have her e-mail address so I can write to her?

She is back. She is magicmeerkat now.

Thanx: I found her and wrote to her. I hope she writes me back.

I lost my password for my PunkyKat account. I'm MagicMeerkat now. I got your email and wrote back to you.

She LIVES!! ! It's good to see you and I hope all is well.

[open mouth, insert foot]

Criticism isn't always what is needed. And something else to think about is the spirit of what people mean when they write things, as opposed to non-verbal cues and so on, really gets lost in the text of forum posts. So I think it's a mix of miscommunication and overreaction that can really mess things up among people online.

Different people have different levels of sensitivity and I can see the same post can be perceived by one person as "mild constructive criticism" and another person can perceive the same post as "cyber-bullying."

I have been constantly berated by my parents and teachers when I was growing up (back in the 1980s when no one knew what AS was and there was no internet around so I didn't even have the benefit of posting to forums). I just suffered in silence as I was bullied by my peers and all the adults in my life were telling me I brought the bullying on myself. I considered suicide several times during my high school years but didn't have the guts to follow through. I didn't have a single soul to talk to so therefore I was very sensitive and touchy.

I understand that you're all trying to help MagicalMeerkat by telling her to "improve her social skills" or consider alternatives to "vet school" but my guess is that she perceived it as rejection online (I know she gets plenty of that IRL from her parents and I can also relate to her experiences of being bullied by teachers as a child).

I also saw people online telling her that she could NEVER make it to vet school just because she struggles academically right now. Never say "never". I think it is possible for her to work on her issues, get some experience working with animals under supervision (either as a vet tech, zookeeper's assistant, or assistant in a wildlife refuge), then go to college and get an undergrad in a sciency field while getting some counseling and academic accommodations for her disabilities, get a high GPA and then get into vet school, and work in a zoo or wildlife sanctuary. I think she does have a gift for exotic animals.

As far as not being able to get into vet school just because she is struggling with high school at age 23, here's a memoir of someone who also struggled with basic addition in their early 30s and ended up starting at a junior college with basic sixth grade math and ended up going to LAW SCHOOL with a 4.0 GPA- she got the tutoring she needed to catch up- http://www.amazon.com/Piece-Cake-Memoir ... 1400052297

Bottom line is that it's NEVER too late to achieve a goal and that you don't always have to walk in a straight line to reach a goal- sometimes a circuitious path is more rewarding than the straight path. She may end up becoming the next Temple Grandin and do something amazing and extraordinary with animals.

Oh, I wish I was 23 again. I mean, there are various methods and "tricks" to do well academically. All quite legal, and some are rather small changes and experiments that can potentially make a big difference.

You know, it was only in the last two or three years that H&R Block and my interest in influenza came together and convinced me that I could have been a pretty good doctor. It's funny what comes together. H&R Block, even though it's an unethical company as I've written about, convinced me that I have plenty good enough one-on-one client skills and more importantly, I can pay attention to what works and what doesn't, and keep my good skills as I add new skills. And I can do this in a way in which I accept myself as I am now. I don't need to panic. I just keep moving forward at a pace good for me.

Now, at age 48, I can probably make bigger contributions through medical writing and perhaps eventually teaching science. (I have taught math before.)

And, about trash talking and cyberbullying, I would say that piling on is itself a type of bullying behavior.

And here, since this is our mates. It's important that we treat each other well. Just because someone responds at 2 or 3 level negative doesn't mean someone else needs to take it all the way to level 10 negative, and yet that happens, not all the time, but still too much. We are better than a lot of groups, and we can still improve further.

'This is the kind of thing the moderators want to know about. I think we should give a moderator a heads up on this one.'

Maybe saying something like that.

That is, a person avoids pouncing. A person is instead letting someone else know that they will be asking a moderator to help out.