It’s strange really. I’m not sure why anyone would care to hear what I have to say. I’ve never really considered my life all that thrilling or different. But maybe going back through everything will help me make sense of where my life is going now.
I was born August 15, 1990 in the very early morning hours to my happy and expectant parents, Tomas and Aiden Torolf. My mother had a pretty normal pregnancy, at least as far as I was told and a very easy delivery. Even at birth I had a rich head of dark hair and noticeably different brown and green eyes that are a family legacy, something my father had as well.
My parents lived in a quiet town in Maine, my mother was a grade school teacher, infinitely patient with a laugh that could change the mood in a room. My Father developed a second career in IT, mostly network security, I don’t really know what he did before that, the whole subject was pretty taboo. He always just said that he was young and dumb. I always suspected it was something with the military, he had a bunch of scars on his arms. I knew enough to respect him and not ask, some things are best left alone.
So I had a fairly peaceful childhood, quiet and filled with my mother’s careful teaching and exuberance for life. I learned faster than most children, but then I had my mother’s hand guiding me. I learned to read by three years old and indulged in a world of books. They were my friends more than anyone I met in school, I could go anywhere in a book and nothing else matter. I never realized how important that would be later in my life.
It was quickly evident, that normal elementary school just wouldn’t work for me, I was too far advanced to really fit in with my classmates. It made it very awkward for me and very hard to make friends when I was ostracized as the teacher’s pet or the nerd. My parents were smart enough to catch on and moved me to a magnet school for the gift, where I was really able to excel. I finished High School by the time I was 12 and applied to MIT that spring. Initially the University didn’t think it was a good idea to have someone so young in their college. My parents were willing to take it all the way to the court system so the board of directors caved and I started college right before I turned 13.
My major was in Biochemistry with a minor in music. I realize the combination is weird, but music has always been my outlet and my escape when the stress of school or anything I’m doing gets to be too much. I can’t say I’m brilliant with any instrument, but I can pick up and play most anything, scientifically the sounds and the way they work just make sense to me. But I guess I’m wandering off the path. My freshman and sophomore years of college went fairly well, the pressure to perform was immense and I know I spent more than a few tearful phone calls with my mother, ready to quit. She would never let me, she’d remind me that all of this would pass and it would really be worth it in the end. That’s something I really had to hang on to.
It was a difficult decision at first for me to live in the dorms. But in the end, it was too difficult to commute and my parents believed it was important for me to form friendships and make connections with other MIT students to ensure my future job opportunities. I learned a lot being a young teenager living on my own, I learned to budget my money and protect myself from people who had an unhealthy interest in a young girl. Believe me there were a lot of guys at school who would have killed to be with the teenager in B door. I really just wasn’t that interested. Not that I’m not attracted to people, I am… Or rather I’m attracted to a beautiful mind, but I just hadn’t found that one person. I’m wandering away from the story again. So anyway…
I clearly remember the night the police came knocking at my door. I thought it was a prank and yelled at them to go away at first, I was used to drunk students trying to harass the “kid.” The knocking persisted and I finally dragged myself out of bed, bleary eyed and confused. I’ll tell you I wasn’t expecting detectives at my door. I can’t really tell you what happened next, I don’t have a clear memory of it. I know they told me there’d been an accident… a gas leak at the house. I know they told me that everything had been lost. I didn’t care about the possessions really. But I lost the only family I had that night, I was only 15. The police questioned me, asked me what family I had to notify, to help take care of me. I was at a loss. I’d never met aunts or uncles, my parents told me that my grandparents had already passed. I was alone.
The next couple weeks were a haze. A social worker was assigned and helped make the funeral arrangements. I don’t even remember the funeral, it doesn’t click in my head. I do remember all the books I read through in those weeks. I don’t even know if I slept, but being in those imaginary worlds kept me together. There was a battle with the social worker… I do remember that, she thought it was best that I get out of school and go live with a foster family. That I was just too young to be on my own entirely. My mother’s encouragement kept playing through my head, I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t give up on my education.
I had to fight it out in court. I really want to believe that the social worker assigned to me had my best interests at heart, she was just too narrow minded to accept a teenager capable of being at MIT and functioning alone. In the end, with the help of a couple of my professor’s testimonies, I was able to win my emancipation. As an emancipated minor I was at least able to make my own decisions and stay in school. Neither of my parents were very well off, but what was left of their life insurance after debts and funerals, was enough to keep me in school without having to work.
School rapidly became my world; I buried myself in my work. I took extra classes, I pushed my professors for my reading materials. I don’t think I picked my head up out of a book until I passed my 16th birthday. It was the summer between semesters; I chose to stay on campus because I didn’t really have anywhere else I wanted to go. I think I figured I could get in some more studying, maybe catch a summer course. I ended up doing an internship in the library, manning the front desk and racking books when they needed to be. I can’t say it was very busy, but it gave me somewhere to sit that was a little less alone than my dorm room.
It was that summer that I met Jay. He was a senior working on his thesis and it made for a great excuse to come to the library every day. At first he’d just say good morning, then he’d stop to talk for a few minutes. Not long after that, he started bringing little gifts. Maybe a snack, or a book he thought I’d like. I really wanted to believe he was actually interested in me. I think I just needed to feel a little less alone. Visiting me at my library desk turned to visiting me at my dorm. A little kiss because a push for something more. I gave in. Mostly because I thought he really cared for me, because I thought he deserved it. Needless to say, it was unpleasant. He wasn’t really concerned about taking care of me, or making sure that I enjoyed it. He just wanted what he wanted. And that’s what it really was, he wanted something young and elicit to satisfy himself and stoke his ego. I dealt with his needs to have his company around, I realize now how twisted that really was. I guess it wouldn’t surprise you much to hear that he disappeared as soon as his thesis was finished. And looking back on it, I think I was almost more relieved than I was upset. It did sour me on physical relationships. But I guess that’s not the point.
Realizing I could connect with someone allowed me to make a few close friendships that helped me through my junior and senior year at MIT. I graduated with honors, top of my class, not that any of my professors were surprised. I always planned on getting my Masters and Doctorate. So I stuck with MIT, continued to go to school. But I decided it was time to venture out into the world a little more. I took my biochemistry background and started working for a chemical corporation that makes a lot of the modern pharmaceutical drugs that people use every day. I really like the concept of helping people, I just don’t want to be the doctor that helps them face to face, seeing that type of human suffering is a bit too much for me. I digress again, sorry.
So I moved off campus into a little apartment, learned to balance work and school and started thoroughly enjoying my masters in chemistry and applied sciences. I was 19 when the problems began. It started with headaches when I was reading and a sense of restlessness I couldn’t shake. I went to an ophthalmologist, who assured me there was nothing wrong with my vision. A general practitioner diagnosed me with migraines and put me on a medication for that. He also thought that my restlessness was stress related and suggested I found a healthy outlet. The migraine medication worked for a little while and I started working out more and picked up playing a few instruments again. It seemed to curb the restlessness and make me a little more comfortable.
For the next year it was a tightrope walk of managing migraines, keeping up with my studies, and getting to work. I think I handled it all pretty well, I didn’t fall behind at anything and my boss was really happy with the work I was doing. My social life did suffer though, it was hard to go out with friends when I was so exhausted at the end of the day. I guess the pattern was pretty typical, I worked and worked out and maybe once in a while caught up with friends over a meal when the headaches didn’t get to me. It seemed to be working out, I could handle a headache here and there if that’s the price I had to pay for success.
I was 22 when the headaches started getting worse. I felt like everything inside me was trying to split apart. Eventually I learned to sense them coming, the world around me would change or at least my perception of it. I know that sounds weird. But before the headaches start, I could smell food cooking in someone’s apartment several blocks away. I could hear the pigeon’s wings beating outside my window as it flew away. Then the restlessness would amplify, I feel like I need to run out of my own skin. At least the symptoms gave me warning of when the catastrophic headaches would hit. I can’t function when they come. Concern, my general practitioner sent me on to a neurologist, fearing the worst, a tumor or cancer. Extensive tests were run, just about everything under the sun. MRIs, Cat Scans, sleep studies. Thankfully, none of the tests showed any tumor or signs of cancer. But they didn’t really give answers either. The neurologists told me my brain chemistry and makeup was abnormal, different than the average person. They thought maybe it explained my intelligence, but they couldn’t understand why it would cause my headaches.
Without an answer, their only solution was to try different medications. They thought maybe it was a nerve disorder, something going a little haywire between my brain and nervous system. The combinations of changing medications and repeated tests made work and school a struggle. Against my wishes I had to back off a bit, slow down my course work and go to a part time schedule. My professors and my supervisor have been thankfully understanding, I feel like they watch me with worried eyes. I don’t really want the sympathy, I just want a normal life.
I would like to say that the neurologists have found a way to stop the headaches. But truthfully, they haven’t. I have some medications that help with the pain when they come, but it’s still a part of my life that I can’t avoid. I’ve learned to watch for the signs, to plan my life around them. I’ve discovered that the headaches and extreme restlessness come and go in predictable phases. I’ve tested my own blood and watched the chemistry, I’ve learned that it changes along with the pattern of my headaches. I’m not sure what it all means, maybe it’s some new disorder or disease.
But, even the headaches didn’t stop me from finishing my Masters. I graduated with honors of course and my professors and the college staff were more than happy to let me start my doctorate at my own pace. Work has progressed as quickly as it can with my part time schedule. My supervisors appreciate the progress I’ve made with chemical synthesis for some new drugs they’re working on. That progress has made for salary increases that make my life a little more comfortable. Learning to track my headaches and their approach has given me a fairly normal life… And in my free time I keep tracking my own strange biological chemistry, maybe I can unlock what’s going on.
So this is where I am. I’m happy enough with my life and my work, I just feel like something’s missing. When the headaches come and go, I can’t help but feel like my body is trying to tell me something. I don’t know what, but just maybe, if I keep working… I’ll figure it out someday.
Sometimes you just have to let go of what's expected of you and find your own path.
Sometimes that path will take you to a whole new life.