Thanks everyone. I do not believe that the Doc Ali program is the answer to all of this and the magic answer to fix it. I was thinking that the idea behind of it of replacing your bad thoughts with good ones could become a good coping mechanism, not only now but in future times - any time there is doubt or insecurities. Something to use as an aid. but it appears the answer is no for this situation.
CoachP, yes we have considered that making a big deal of it in the form of therapy will make things worse. We have waited a bit to see if this is something that she would move past and with the gym change we thought she would. While she became herself again for a short time again we are back to some really awful behavior (I see it as her trying to have control of something bigger in her life and also trying to control someone else - mainly her sibling- and in the way she was treated) along with some constant awful thoughts about herself. And no, I'm not that crazy that I would be upset about my child being told to sit out for some reason or another - unless done in a degrading way of course!
We did leave this alone and only talked to her about it when she brought something up, but things got worse for her and how she was acting and thinking changed. Now we do sit down with her when she is completely withdrawn and in a near tears stage and work with her talking about things- we don't dredge up the old situation until she does, but focus on getting her to open up about her feelings in general. Which normally she won't. To get the truth we have to wait on her and that is fine, she just needs to know that we are here for her and that we do see her struggling and want to help her in any way that we can. We've tried to keep things normal in normal life and make sure that days off are just that and also fun.
So we will see what therapy brings for her this week. She does need to get some of her feelings out. We did a therapeutic exercise with her after a really rough day in the gym and she had said some things on the way home. It seemed freeing for her and she said a lot of things I've had an idea she was feeling but never said and then a few things I didn't know about. I think it was helpful in the fact that an aspect of it she thought would have been fun in general and that we weren't asking her to talk directly to us, but left her to just yell everything she wanted to say to the old coach with the extra fun part attached.
Will she ever return to the gym? I don't know and that is up to her. She has to feel good about going and cannot be in fear of going or unhappy because she is there. She says she loves gym but isn't happy right now nor is it fun. When she is feeling more confident then if she wants to go back, we will make that happen for her. Until then, we will wait until she says something. I just talked with her AGAIN that gym is for her and no one else, that we love her for her and while we love watching her in the gym, it is because she was having fun and loved it herself. If she isn't having fun or loving it anymore/right now then it is okay. Surprisingly, she talked about gymnastics with someone today and in a good way, which was the first time in a month other than when it is about the issues.
Thank you everyone for the opinions and the well wishes that she heals from this.
