Douglas B. Feaver 
THE WASHINGTON POST 
Sunday, August 26, 2001 

When Steven B. Feaver, 37, was found dead in his 
Alexandria, Va., apartment building Aug. 5, his parents were 
left trying to make sense of their son's agonizing struggle 
with schizophrenia and his decision to end his life by 
hanging himself. At a memorial service, Douglas B. Feaver -- 
executive editor of The Washington Post's online service, 
washingtonpost.com  -- spoke candidly about his son's 
illness, its confounding comings and goings and its 
devastating effects on the family. The following is excerpted 
from his remarks: 

Very few of you knew Steven personally. He lived in a different 
world than most of us, and his friends were also from that 
world. He met his girlfriend about a decade ago when they 
were both patients in a psychiatric ward. She cannot be here 
today because she is again in a psychiatric ward, and very ill. 
His closest friend and sometime roommate also is not well 
enough to be here. 

Judy (Steven's mother) and I have been trying to remember 
the times when Steven was happy. . . . 

He loved the ocean. The first time he encountered it was at 
Virginia Beach when he was 6, and he could have stayed 
there forever, darting in and out of the waves. 

He loved to play soccer and, later, basketball. He was good 
at both, for a short guy, because he was so competitive. Even 
when he was in the deepest fog, he could provide a 
complete analysis of all the NBA teams. . . . 

And he loved to play bridge. He could force his sometimes 
deranged mind to crystallize on how best to defeat that little 
slam contract, then rejoice in the triumph, then descend 
minutes later into total irrationality. 

It became clear when he was in junior high that he was 
troubled. To say that he experimented with drugs and alcohol 
would be to put the most sympathetic light on the matter. By 
the time he was a young adult, the trouble had become 
diagnosed as schizophrenia, with its delusions and 
hallucinations and the unsilenceable voices that command. 

Medications do not control schizophrenia that well in all 
people, and antipsychotic drugs can have unpleasant side 
effects. Steven hated them, and as soon as he could escape 
the constant monitoring of a hospital, he would stop taking 
them. He preferred his own medication, marijuana, which 
the mental health professionals told him time and again 
interfered with the effectiveness of the antipsychotic drugs. 

There are two schools of thought on the subject: that the 
illegal substances can cause the mental illness or that the 
mental illness can cause the individual to self-medicate with 
illegal substances. This has become a doctrinal debate with 
strong adherents for both positions within the mental health 
profession and the righteous antidrug/criminal justice types. 
Neither answer works in real time. There is one known fact 
about this chicken-egg question: About half of all diagnosed 
schizophrenics also have substance-abuse issues. 

When Steven got sick enough -- when he "decompensated," 
as the mental health people would say -- he would do 
something outrageous or threatening. His parents or the 
police or a frightened neighbor would intervene, and he 
would be involuntarily hospitalized or jailed. We lost count of 
the number of times that happened. 

In recent months, Steven actually appeared to be doing 
better, to be settling down. He was in a new apartment that 
he liked. He was on a new drug regimen that he appeared to 
be tolerating. He had made friends with a neighbor, and he 
was delighted when the neighbor strung balloons on a 
shared balcony to celebrate his 37th birthday in June. 

In July, he got his driver's license back -- it had been 
suspended for six months under Virginia law because of his 
conviction on a marijuana possession charge. The return of 
the driver's license meant he could return to his part-time 
delivery job. 

Saturday afternoon, he was involved in a minor traffic 
accident in Northern Virginia. He was charged with failure to 
maintain control and, more importantly, with possession of 
marijuana. That would mean another six months' 
suspension, another six months without work. 

His body was found Sunday morning by the neighbor who 
had strung the balloons. 

The pain and anger that we sometimes felt as parents and 
family is nothing like the pain Steven felt, something I had to 
tell myself often. One of his former counselors, the wonderful 
Rhonda, reminded me Monday that "Steven never quit trying." 
He also never quit trying to define the world in his own terms, 
but his touch was incendiary. He burned every bridge, 
including his last one. 

In the early 1980s, Steven had not yet displayed the classic 
signs of schizophrenia, but troubles beyond normal 
adolescent difficulties were beginning to be obvious, even to 
this denying parent. I was ranting to my own father in my 
typical way about how, by God, that child was going to obey 
me and start walking a straight line or I would toss him to the 
world. 

Dad was failing badly, sliding into his own dementia. But he 
sat straight up, turned to me, and said sternly and with great 
clarity, "Doug, I don't understand everything that is going on 
with Steven. But you must not give up on him." 

And Judy and I did not, although we were certainly tempted 
from time to time. And I am confident -- it is the core of my 
strengthening faith -- that God has not given up on him, 
either.