Is Anyone Out There?

I'm drowning lately and people can see it. I'm trying so hard not to feel for everyone's sake. I am trying to remember when I was a teenager and someone could say something mean or overly honest and my heart would flutter, but I bounced it back so that I wouldn't get hurt. I don't know how to do that anymore and I need it. My head is a constant battlefield, my mind circles thoughts that I don't want to have and I end up saying things that are harsh and I'm becoming someone I don't want to be.
My brother isn't here. I wish he were here so badly. He would take me to dinner and tell me to get my act together. We would sit on the couch and talk before he left to hang out with his girlfriend. If you know me, then you think this doesn't make sense. I miss him, it's hard when you go through life feeling someone standing next to you and all of the sudden they are gone and then when you are alone...you are really alone. I don't know what I did, but I could use him now more than ever.
I'm fighting depression again for a number of reasons and with it is coming old thoughts and temptations that I don't want to have so I have joined an online group. Not something I would normally do, but it has been helping. Sometimes they say things I don't want to hear, but perhaps need to hear and it's the honesty I appreciate.
My distraction has left the state and after being hurt the same as I have been, has put up a wall of boundaries that lessens conversation even though I need it now.
I'm trying to channel these feelings into music, photography, something other than the sleep and sharp objects that are tempting me, because the emotions I have I don't deserve and I know that.