Shzophrenia in the Music Industry

When we talk about someone being mentally ill, generally we mean that a person has a mental illness. These days “Mental Disorders are common in the United States and internationally” (national institute of Mental Health.) Also, if you look at this astonishing statistic, “An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 an older – about one in four adults – suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.” The main subject on this paper is about Schizophrenia in which this mental disorder affects an astonishing “2.4 million American adults, or 1.1 percent of the population age 18 and older in a given year.” When you try and figure out if this mental disorder affects males or females, unlike other mental disorders this one in particular does not discriminate. The only difference is that males will most likely start to signs of the disorder in the early teens or early twenties, women who develop Schizophrenia will usually show signs in their late twenties or early thirties. In this paper I discuss of Schizophrenia plagued Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd and Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys and the stepping stones they faced throughout their years. “Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by the presence of either positive manifestations, or negative manifestations.” (Frazier, Margaret Schell, and Drzymlowski, Jeanette Wist. Mental Disorders) People with Schizophrenia experience difficulty completing education, keeping their employment, and find it difficult to have relationships – most people associate Schizophrenia with the common sign of disoriented thinking. Rapidly changing subjects, replying to questions with unrelated answers, and speaking illogically. (Essentials of Human Disorders and Conditions, St Louis Missouri Elsevier, 2009)

Syd Barrett lost his father, Arthur Max Barrett due to cancer, a month before his 16th birthday which in turn Syd’s mother expressed to him to get rid of his grief through making music