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 me, 'Help people, Mom. Because no one could help me.' "

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 about - boys.

Read the full story here.