Thomas Lee Warschefsky II "TJ", son of Thomas and Susan (Linenger) Warschefsky, was born 18 April 1984, Lansing, Ingham County, Michigan.  TJ graduated in 2002 from Okemos High School and furthered his education at Albion College and was, at the time of death, enrolled at Marquette University School of Dentistry, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.  TJ was an excellent tennis player in high school.

TJ, due to his eating disorder, died from the results of starvation 14 February 2007, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Lansing State Journal (Lansing, Michigan) Wednesday 21 February 2007

THOMAS LEE WARSCHEFSKY II "TJ"

OKEMOS, MI

4-18-84 - 2-14-07

TJ Warschefsky had an insatiable love for his family, learning, traveling, and sports.  He was an avid fan of college basketball, loved to ski, hunt, and play tennis.  He graduated from Okemos high School, Albion College, and was currently at Marquette Dental School in Milwaukee.  He aspired to be an orthodontist.  TJ will be remembered for his quick wit and humor along with his high standards and incredible moral values.  Words cannot express the overwhelming loss that will be felt so deeply by all those who were touched by TJ during his twenty-two years.  Loving son of Susan (John) Barry of Okemos and Tom (Barb) Warschefsky of Williamston; loving sister, Jessica Barry and brother, Daniel Warschefsky; step-sisters, Jenny and Kristina Klco; grandparents, Lee and Joyce Warschefsky and Frances Linenger; and huge circle of relatives and friends.  Preceded in death by his grandfather, Donald Linenger.  Funeral services Saturday, February 24, 11:00 a.m. at Trinity Church, 3355 Dunckel Road, Lansing, MI.

Editors Note: Due to sheer length the LSJ article was halved. The cronical of his tragic death is reprinted to help his mother raise awareness of anorexia.

Lansing State Journal (Lansing, Michigan) Sunday February 15, 2009

OKEMOS MOM ON MISSION TO RAISE AWARENESS

In one photo, the one she wears as a locket around her neck, her son is a grinning, chubby-cheeked toddler.

In the others, the ones she discovered in a lockbox after he died, he is a shrinking skeleton.

Growing more and more gaunt with every self-portrait until the sharp points of ribs and collarbone poke visibly, painfully against skin.  Until the place where there was once a six-pack of abs becomes nothing but a hollowed-out space.  Until his full head of hair grows thin and patchy with baldness.  Until the boy who once stood with athletic pride is hunched, barely possessing the strength to hold the camera.

Okemos' Susan Barry cries as she reveals each photo.

"Why would he do this?" she asks.  "Why would he take these pictures of himself and then hide them?"

Then she answers her own question.

"He wanted me to find these.  He was telling , 'Help people, Mom.  Because no one could help me.'"

A dozen years ago, Susan had no idea boys could suffer from anorexia.  Not until her then-14-year-old son, TJ Warschefsky, removed his shirt at a backyard pool party and revealed a frame so suddenly thin, she immediately got him into therapy.

It was the beginning of a nine-year ordeal that ended Valentine's Day 2007, when TJ did sit-ups in his Milwaukee apartment until his heart gave out - one last gasp in a body wracked by years of starvation.

He was 22.  He weighed 78 pounds.

Susan discovered after he died that he left behind journals, poems and pictures.  Together, they offer raw insight into what might be driving a rise in male eating disorders, frustrations about a medical community that seemed ill-equipped to deal with his problem, and the fears of one young man who felt powerless to stop.

Now, two years after his death, his mother is on a mission to share her son's words and tragic journey to help the victims of eating disorders we rarely hear bout - boys.

She sits on the floor of her bedroom, a damp tissue crumpled in her hand.  Scattered around her knees are his photos, now mixed with her own pictures from over the years.

TJ clowning around with his younger sister, Jessica, and his step-father, John, at a family event.

A healthy TJ after he gained 30 pounds during one of his four stints in a residential treatment center.

A shockingly thin TJ at Christmas 2006, less than two months before he died.

An even thinner TJ, showing the camera where dark, fuzzy hair had begun to sprout along his skinny arms, his body's primal defense against the cold of starvation.

That photo was taken, Susan believes, the day he died.

"This isn't my son," she says, running her fingers up and down his arm as if still trying to comfort him, or maybe herself.

In so many ways, she's right.  The young man in the photo is nothing like the TJ everyone knew outside of the eating disorder that controlled him.

He was a motivated self-starter who got straight A's and played sports.

He attended church twice a week, helped his neighbors mow their lawns and once refused a challenge to say a swear word, jut once, for money.

If he set a goal, he achieved it.  When he settled on a career in dentistry, he received scholarship offers from all three branches of the United State military.  He chose the Air Force; TJ later was rejected - according to a letter from the Air Force - because of his low weight.

But even after that fall, he pulled himself up and got into the dental program at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

"I know so many parents say that their children are perfect," Susan says, 'but I really did have the perfect son.  He had so much going for him.  He lost so much because of the eating disorder.  He could do anything he wanted but he couldn't do this."

There are so many things that anger Susan, so many ways she feel the system failed TJ.

She says she tried everything she could.  Counselors.  Encouragement.  Tough love.  Punishment.  Residential treatment centers; he was in and out four times.

"So many times, I felt like I was just standing there and screaming, "Why can't somebody help me?"...As many as one in five eating disorder sufferers are males, but there are only a couple of residential centers for men.  We got him into one center, and he was the only boy there.  He hated it."

Even when they discovered Roger's, [Roger's Memorial Hospital, Milwaukee] it was $850 a day.

"TJ would go, and he would gain just as much weight as was necessary, and then he would be released, and he would immediately start all over again..."

Her voice trails off.

Susan shares another photo.  It's a picture of his black, granite gravestone.  She visits TJ every day.

If love could have saved you, the inscription reads, you would have lived forever.

"I see puffy eyes, gray teeth, skeleton face," he wrote in March of 2005. "I hate that.  I can't stand how I look.  But the other part of that is I like so much the satisfaction I get from doing what I do."  TJ Warschefsky