Roger Keith Barrett lost his father when he was 15.
Now since this topic is about grief I'm going to go straight to the point - I always get disappointed when people say that's Syd's breakdown was due to his daily use of LSD (not possible by the way) and they neither mention (or even know of it) the grief caused by his father's death as a factor in his breakdown.
Take, for example that documentary called The Syd Barrett Story. 10 minutes of waste describing his "black holes in the sky" and use of LSD, and not even one mention of his greatest heartbreak (in my opinion) .
I think there's a lot in this. At the very least it's one element to his breakdown. I'm not suggesting everyone who lost their Dad when they were young goes insane (Although I came pretty close) but this is one clue that's got overlooked.
Whatever you do, you continue to look for the approval and support from somebody who's no longer alive. So it must have been quite difficult for Syd.
But I suppose it depends also on the agenda of the reporting. If it's as "deep" as heat magazine, then it'll be the "Yeah! He took too many drugs and went mental! Don't do drugs! Have a nice beer at a festival instead! Look! We've got Plan B booked!"
I've only read the "Crazy Diamond", but I was surprised nothing was made more of Syd's "Poor Dad died today" diary entry.
I wouldn't say it's 90% the reason. But his Dad's death, added with the magic of being in a band getting compromised by the record industry and (And I'm really sorry to bring this up) his middle class reservedness, so it wouldn't do to lash out, all add up to a pretty confused Barrett.
If Syd indeed had schizophrenia, I must say his dad's death would have played some part in it - stress is a major accelerator of that illness. Like you said, it was not 90 % the reason, the drugs and fame were more immediate causes, but his Dad's death was the long term killer, and also the one that gets overlooked the most.
rememberaday wrote:stress is a major accelerator of that illness. ...but his Dad's death was the long term killer, and also the one that gets overlooked the most.
Long term killer? Syd's sister also lost her dad, and didn't go mad years later.
I will agree with you that stress is a major accelerator of any mental illness, and in my view it was the main cause for Syd's breakdown, coupled with Syd's own susceptibility to develope whatever condition he had. But psychotropic substance abuse sure didn't help either, LSD is a very powerful mind altering drug, it can completely transform a person, their take on life and self perception, specially the kind of pure LSD that was taken during the 60s.
Everybody lost someone very dear to them. That happens all the time, and it's a natural course of life.
Some of us accept that in a more sensitive way then others.
Syd became crazy becouse of number of things, one of them being that he was Syd and not someone else.
Meaning - you or me would have coped with the same things in life differently and different chemical reactions would have happened in our brain becouse of lsd, mom, dad, sister, fame, whatever...
We can never pinpoint one or two particular reasons for it.
It's allways mixture of personality, events in your life through which your specific personality functions exactly as it does, horoscope or whatever...
That's right, it's not only the stress but also how much stressed out Syd became. Syd was naturally a sensitive person and a person who is emotionally more fragile than others is more prone to succumb to stress.
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