I learned a lot at Yale. I learned about Russian orthodox chant. I wrote papers about John Adams. I learned the German word for vomit and all the correct past participles. I even learned how to play church organ.

But none of that mattered. I mean, it did, I had to keep my GPA high and my professors happy. And I don’t even think that I knew that Yale was the beginning of the end of my career in music in the midst of it all, but every spelling error to every chamber music concert was my purpose in life.

Until I got sick.

I remember taking the shuttle to class and not feeling right. I was low on sleep and I just hurt all over. My back started spasming. My stomach turned. When my eyes started fading to black, I bolted for the door and got out, shortly before fainting on the grass in front of the library. I remember the grass being wet from a morning shower and it felt cool on my face. I just stayed there for a while until I felt strong enough to stand.

I still don’t know if that day I was experiencing my endometriosis or a bad flare of fibro, but either way, I couldn’t ignore how sick I had been feeling. I needed help. So I saw a few doctors at first. The first one was at the Yale hospital…and she completely dismissed me. Every symptom I told her about was met with some extremely condescending source, like “it’s just because you’re tall/skinny/female/stressed/tired”. I knew it was more than that. I knew not being able to walk up my stairs, my fainting spells, my weight loss, my memory loss, my numbness in extremities were not because I was skinny. This lady literally went Jimmy Carter on me and told me to put on a sweater. I still wish I had the prescription for that, I would’ve put that on my wall as a reminder that not all doctors are your advocates. But also that there are good ones out there who want to help, they’re just harder to find.

My next doctor was a young PA. I had to go several towns over to find her at a practice that was smaller, more family-oriented, and less busy with student traffic like New Haven was. She ran every test she could, only to find that I was perfectly healthy on paper. Thus, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I’ve talked about how that diagnosis affected me, so I won’t get into that part here, but that was a crucial point for me in my studies.

From there I unfortunately only got worse. That was in my first year of my masters at Yale. And while I had a sense of closure with my newly-found diagnosis, simply knowing what was attacking me didn’t necessarily help to stop it. My health continued to decline.

And that is where Yale let me down. Bear with me here, I’m about to let out my resentment for this time in my life when I was welcomed into this supposed academically elite institution, only to find myself helpless without resources to succeed. I don’t know, maybe it was a tough teacher who couldn’t see how I was struggling, or maybe it was the 6 months it took to be matched with a counselor (and by that time she was leaving for summer break), or maybe it was when I was refused a tutor when my grades were dropping, or maybe it was the time I claimed disability and instead of offering support or even some fucking concern, I was told to stop faking it, to stop drawing attention to myself, and then told I would suffer the consequences of lower marks. Like how my chamber music grade was lowered twice because I missed attendance to concerts…to go fuck off with my friends at Blue State Coffee? No, to writhe in pain at home and get the 1 hour of sleep I was allotted per day.

Now that my grievances are aired, you must know that there were a lot of other factors to my decline in health that Yale had nothing to do with and had no control over. It wasn’t Yale’s fault that living expenses were so high in New Haven that I had to work while I went to school. It wasn’t their fault that I didn’t have wealthy parents there to bail me out of everything, and it wasn’t their fault that my parents also loved me enough to not let me fall into the student loan trap of my generation. Yale didn’t force me to choose difficult classes, and they certainly didn’t force me to stress over lofty goals like a Fulbright scholarship or a competition in Switzerland. They encouraged greatness but it was of course at my own risk.

So let’s talk about my 1 hour sleep schedule. I literally cycled my sleep so that I could function on less. With a job bartending at a night club, to having to practice 5 hours a day, to auditions, classes, papers, projects, work study, and presentations, there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to complete all the tasks that were expected of me while still being able to afford rent.

Here’s what a typical day at Yale looked like for me:

9am. I’ve been awake since 5. My first class. Intensive German.

1130am. I run home to get 35 minutes of sleep

1230pm. Next class. History of Minimalist Music

2pm. Chamber music rehearsal.

330pm. Bassoon lesson.

430pm. Consume caffeine while walking to practice rooms, practice 2 hours.

630pm. German homework and history paper writing.

800pm. Get ready for work, inhale peanut butter and hope for the best.

9pm. Throwing vodka crans at shitty undergrads who don’t tip on their moms credit card

2am. Wipe the fireball and shame off of me and head to the 24 hour diner.

230am. Study at diner, pay waitress extra to keep me awake. I literally would tip her an extra 5 or 10 to come wake me up if I fell asleep on my books.

430am practice in Woolsey Hall organ studio. Practiced organ and bassoon.

630am. Sleep an hour. Sleep in practice room if outfit is acceptable for another day.

730am. Wake up and study quickly before weekly German test

830am. Get to school to fail said german test.

Repeat.

My life was chaos. The only person who ever truly saw how much I was struggling was our department’s receptionist. She would welcome me into the building and say, “Good morning! How many hours of sleep did you get this time?” And sometimes it would be none. Sometimes I would miss that afternoon bus home or a professor would need something immediately or whatever would come up. So while this lack of sleep wasn’t directly Yale’s fault, I knew that it was what I had to do to meet their standards.

So then came the big moment when I realized I was unhappy. I was at the tail-end of my second year and I was recording an audition tape for that competition in Switzerland I mentioned. I was almost done with Yale. I was running on less than fumes but I was so close. It was a duo with bassoon and cello and I was struggling to get through an entire take of the piece. It was a very…athletic piece to play, with very few breaks to breathe and having to carry a 15 pound piece of expensive firewood in my hands. I finally got one good take. But it wasn’t great.

I called my dad while I took a moment to go outside and breathe. I don’t call my dad often. I call him when I’ve exhausted all my logical reasoning and I need another opinion, or if I’m about to make a big decision and I need him to agree that I’m making good choices. I remember yelling at him, half-jokingly, “Why did you let me choose music?!?! How could you DO this to me?” It just felt like the most stressful experience ever, having to perform on cue with a camera, try to play well with another person, make no mistakes, but also be so masterful that it sounds easy. Those 8 minutes of music were the 8 most challenging minutes of my life at that point. I just suddenly realized how unreasonably stressful music was. The pressure of my own standards was debilitating–it was much easier to play when I was younger and hadn’t refined anything. But as a professional I stood there with an intimate awareness of every uneven bout of vibrato, every note a few cents too sharp, and even the sound of my own shallow breaths as I struggled to get through the piece. And then the pressure to play well enough to be accepted into this world renown competition, where I was actually competing against the odds as an American bassoon player vs European. The stress felt like an 80 pound man hanging from my shoulders, tightening his grip at every mistake.

My dad helped me through it and I was able to calm down enough to do one more take. The take that won me a ticket to Switzerland.

Here is that video. My swan song, if you will.

That was a nice story right? It had you stressed out for a moment there, wondering if I would make it. And it had a nice resolution when you found out I was successful.

Fuck all that. Suddenly a life of stress flashed before my eyes and my heart sank. And when I finally went to Switzerland, the only thing I was thinking of was, “Well this is nice but…what next?” A life time of self-criticism-fueled practice sessions? Of odd jobs that paid the bills but sacrificed musicianship? Of never knowing if I would be able to pay my bills? Of wondering if someday I would get too sick and all of a sudden have no marketable skills? I had just decided that music was too stressful for my health, and if I only had one life to live, I was going to live it adventuring and chasing happiness.

And I’ve found all of that in Colorado. I’m extremely happy.

But I feel guilty at times, knowing how many mentors and teachers worked hard to help me get into Yale in the first place. And I am not ungrateful for them believing in me. There was no way for them to know what was brewing under the surface for my health and they had no idea that our school would be so unprepared in handling it. So thank you, you know who you are, I appreciate your dedication to supporting me. And here comes the grateful part:

So even though I’m not doing music anymore, Yale helped me see my true potential. Yale turned me into the tenacious, never-settling, creative, and hard-working person that I am now. I achieved a lot in my time there and I’ll always be proud of the good work I did, and I have Yale to thank for that. Sometimes I wonder if I owe Yale my life because without learning my limits there, I probably would never have found the strength to pursue my own health so aggressively.

My efforts are now focused on supporting the chronic pain community. I may not be the leading scholar on Schenkerian analysis, but I will continue to use my writing here to promote awareness for this cause I care so deeply about.

So thanks, Yale. You opened a lot of doors for me and helped me discover what I’m truly capable of. Until our class reunion,

-Elle