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Almost as soon, signs of depression also emerged. (Steroids affect the limbic system of the brain, which plays a role in emotions, and can cause not only irritability and depression but may also lead to delusions and mania.) Early last year in a phone call with his brother Donald Jr., 23, Taylor admitted he wanted to hurt himself. Told about the conversation, his parents, Donald, a marketing director for a computer firm, and Gwen, an elementary school teacher, got Taylor to a psychiatrist, who put him on an antidepressant.
Taylor stopped taking the steroids, but his girlfriend Emily Parker, 16, says, "Things started going downhill from there." Upset that he was losing muscle tone, and that schoolmates were commenting that he had gained weight, he talked about going back on steroids. On the morning of July 15, his mother went upstairs to talk to Taylor. She found him hanging by a belt around his neck from the door frame. He left behind a suicide note that read, "I love you guys, and I'm sorry for everything."
Ask Shane if he has any real fears that his steroid use will end badly and he skirts the issue. "I don't think so," he says, "but you never know." He's already busy anticipating how sculpted he will look once he cuts back on his calories. Somehow, in his telling, the centuries-old pursuit of the perfect human physique can sound like a realistic goal and an impossible folly all at the same time. "You always want to keep getting bigger and stronger," he says, "your body better-looking."
