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Hello Family,

I'm constantly torn between how much we share of our private lives and how much we should share to shed light on issues a lot of us aren't comfortable talking about. I know deep down it's good to normalize issues like this so people don't feel so alone and lost like we've felt the past few months so we want to share with you.

Without going into the dirty details, I wanted everyone to know that JJ, our nephew we've been raising as our son for the past four years, has decided he does not want help from us and has left us no choice but to return legal guardianship to my sister, who is going to abandon him and he'll go into the foster system, which he wants. We do not want this for him, however, because he's almost 17 now everyone tells us we have no say if he doesn't want to cooperate voluntarily.

This past year has been incredibly volatile as we learned more and more about behavior JJ had been hiding from us for what seems to be nearly as long as he's been with us. As he escalated his behavior his school and law enforcement had to be involved dozens of times. He took advantage of us over and over telling us he wanted help while evidence would later show he was telling "friends" the opposite. Eventually JJ got frustrated with us for grounding him and he just started running away then started telling people we were abusing him. First it was mental, then his stories escalated into us "beating him so much he couldn't get off the ground." I take accusations like this incredibly seriously so once he started making those accusations against us, I knew he would say or do anything to get what he wanted, even hurt us. 

Most of you know I come from a very toxic/dangerous family background so we spent years talking to JJ about the habits/behaviors of our toxic family in an effort to teach him not to follow in the footsteps of his parents, grandparents, aunts, etc. For the longest time we really did think we reached him. He convincingly made it seem like he understood it and was putting in effort. Unfortunately we found out too late it was all just a façade and last summer the charade ended when we were going through his phone and found exchanges with his girlfriend about murdering Simon and I so they could run off together. From there his behavior only got more deceiving and treacherous. We tried to get him into counseling but he'd just lie to the therapist and at one point he even wanted to go to a youth shelter where he was supposed to get help and he just ran away from there too.

I'd write a novel going into everything we've all been through in the past few years but there's no point. At the end of the day JJ has decided he doesn't want our help and with his awful accusations and "fantasy" death threat, he's made us unable to help him and we don't feel safe.

This is without a doubt the hardest thing I've gone through in my life. All I wanted was to see him succeed away from the people who mistreated him and now I'm witnessing him actually FIGHT to be toxic in the most destructive ways possible. It's broken my heart so many times. Unfortunately we can no longer do anything until he wants our help and is willing to show us through actions he means it. We haven't given up on him but we need to protect ourselves now or he will continue his toxic behavior and doesn't care about who he hurts in the process. This is about setting healthy boundaries and that's what we have to be strong enough to do. We want better for JJ but ultimately he has to want it for himself or he won't ever improve.

As for our comic, as I've mentioned before, it was inspired by real people but is a fictional family that's more idealistic than what we've experienced; goals if you will. I love our comic and I want it to continue being a positive experience, even when we tackle real world issues. If anything I need this now more than ever; something positive to hold onto. We're getting back to work on the comic and the next book collection. Our comic will continue with the adventures of our characters and we hope you'll all join us.

Big hug to you all! Thank you for your support through this. 

-Bryan & Simon