Dear Brother

It was on the 10th of December 2010 that I lost the only person who I had ever been close to and was drowned in guilt.  Shaun was effeminately beautiful and Androgynous from the beginning. Mum even made him take ballet and he obliged but the changes in him were obvious from the first week at school. He hid from mum the fact that he was being bullied because of his looks and mum failed to realise what was happening. He taught himself to play the piano and started hiding away from the boys bullying him by drawing and writing. I didn't know him back then, being eight years younger than him but there is a little box in the attic dedicated to who he had once been.  By the time I was eight he was drop dead gorgeous in a lot of people's opinion but he hated how he was Androgynous and he loathed his voice because he had a voice somewhat like Pink's that made people cry because of how beautiful it was (only when he sang obviously). He suffered from vitiligo; the problems just kept on growing. When I was eight one night I found him lying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor and thankfully he pulled through. He was diagnosed with Bulimia, schizophrenia and Bipolar One (we keep getting told that Bipolar and Schizophrenia couldn't exist together in one person but from what I know Shaun struggled with both.) Five weeks after he left hospital he tried to slit himself open, this was followed by the time he tried to electrocute himself and the time he attempted to set fire to himself and jump off the roof. As far as he was concerned the voices told him he was an alien and human food was toxic to him. Humans were all demons and the only foe he had was me because I was a 'good demon' and I didn't tell anyone. It was those voices that made him 'punish' himself every Thursday by binging so badly that he would be sick. Most of Sunday might was spent purging and then he would go through the rest of the week on cigarettes, coffee and Red Bull (these three were the only 'acceptable delicacies' that the 'humans had stolen' from the aliens.) He started doing drugs and the perfect little boy he had once seemed fell apart due to the damage.  No one however saw any of this because mum would often lock him into his room when he got really bad but he was mostly always at school; a straight A student with a winning personality but who would never talk to anyone despite how people wanted to be his friend. He shocked everyone by getting A's in all of his GCSE's and A Levels and was accepted into Cambridge. However he ran away from home when he was eighteen and mum and dad burnt all of his things. For months I believed he had died until Spechelle (an aspiring supermodel who had once lived next door to us with her parents) took me to her  house one day and I met Shaun after ages of believing I would never see him again. He seemed a lot more stable than before and Spechelle loved him dearly.....but then Spechelle's aunt decided she couldn't see Shaun anymore and made Spechelle accept a proposal from someone ten times her age. This shattered Shaun and he killed the neighbours dog, he stole, he ran away and was found in hospital where he was kept until he seemed safe enough to be let go. As though she wanted to watch him struggle, Spechelle's aunt decided he would be the best man at Spechelle's wedding. I almost expected Shaun to explode when he found out but he shocked me by agreeing to do as he was asked. Fortunately seeing him again enabled Spechelle to make a decision and she ended up back with Shaun. Their relationship was strong and firm for months until Spechelle decided she wanted a baby but Shaun had binged and purged his way to impotence. They struggled to find a way around the obstacle in their path and adopted a baby bunny who they named Boxer, however Spechelle managed to conceive shortly after Boxer's arrival and Shaun had never been happier.  Their joy was only short lived however because despite how Shaun joined a million anti-anorexia and anti-mia campaigns his weight had fallen too low. He had become a frail skeleton and it hurt to look at him. He ended up hospitalised after a lengthy fight and died shortly later due to substance abuse, and complications due to bulimia. Spechelle had a gorgeous baby boy on the 12th Of December who we named Damien and committed suicide on the 15th of April.  It has been a little over a year since Shaun passed away. Now Damien has become a ray of hope in my life. He is my strength and I love my nephew dearly. I am anorexic myself and suffer from severe depression. I've been through a lot lately and thoughts of suicide constantly drench my otherwise dry mind. I found myself considering death this morning but found myself unable to find out what to do...