Congratulations! My daughter is at NAPS now and I can see how she has changed from a fun outgoing young lady to a passionless person.
Ditto NavyHoops.
It can be hard going at NAPS, and if she is home now for the holidays, the prospect of going back to the grind, in the dark and cold of the bitter wind whistling off Narragansett Bay, visiting with friends from HS who are living “the good life” at State U, still too early to know if she’ll get into USNA - well, it’s a tipping point. If she really wants to serve as a Navy or Marine Officer via USNA, then she holds every card in her hand to get herself there.
USNA believed in her enough to essentially save her a seat in the class and give her an extra lick and polish to ensure she succeeds. NAPSters do very well at USNA - they have dealt with being away from home, lived in a military environment and learned about about routines, culture and language, gained a ready-made set of friends and much more.
I am guessing track might be her sport. Time to break out the sports psychology, dig deep, envision the joy of gaining an appointment, then, 4 more years of grind alongside her classmates, then she can be one of those tossing her cover in the air with relief, pride and excitement on her Commissioning Day. She will have done what she set out to do.
These challenges will test her ability to manage stress and her own mood and her self-discipline.
I am fond of recommending some lectures by VADM James Stockdake, who got himself through his time as a Vietnam POW by focusing on what he could actually control and keeping himself focused on one thing - surviving. I heard him speak several times, and the transcripts of his lectures are very readable.
https://www.usna.edu/Ethics/_files/documents/stoicism1.pdf
https://www.usna.edu/Ethics/_files/documents/Stoicism2.pdf
If your daughter wants to be a warrior, this is her path - it’s hard, not at all like a recruiting video, and nothing like what her friends are doing.
I hope she finds her happy self again, embraces the suck and becomes determinedly cheerful. And fierce!