According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, in the United States, more than 20-26% of women and 8-12% of men experience a major depressive episode at some point in their lives.
Teenagers are prone to depression because of a combination of hormonal changes as well as social stressors like peer pressure and bullying, though persistent feelings of sadness and loss of interest in activities can occur to any young person, even if they’re not going through teenage drama.
It takes a patient and empathetic person to intervene in situations with depressed teens, but that’s precisely what one hair stylist did when a 16-year-old girl walked into a Waterloo, Iowa salon after weeks of not being able to get out of bed.
The young girl explained that she had finally found the motivation to leave her bed for anything besides a trip to the bathroom. She was going back to school soon and knew student photos would be coming up. This triggered her to seek some help for her severely matted hair, which she hadn’t found the motivation to wash or comb in weeks.
Understanding that the girl was in distress, 20-year-old Kayley Olsson rallied her colleagues to help the teen.
At first, the girl asked that they simply shave her head or cut her hair short because she assumed the damage was irreversible. But knowing that a makeover can be an amazing self-esteem boost, the stylists committed to spending hours untangling her hair instead.
Kayley told the BBC:
“Cutting her hair was absolutely not an option for me. I knew right then and there that we had to keep as much hair as possible.”
Over the course of two days, Kayley and her fellow stylist Mariah Wenger spent a total of 13 hours combing out the girl’s hair.
Of course, the process was painful, but they wouldn’t let the girl give up or feel like a burden:
“It took a lot of encouraging words, reassurance, and just plain conversation to take her mind off of the pain involved in removing the matting and to boost her self esteem and confidence.”
Both Kayley and Mariah had had their own struggles with mental health in the past and knew how to relate to their client:
“I was able to very closely relate to her mental health problems and the daily struggle that comes with them, due to my struggles with postpartum depression and anxiety,” explained Mariah.
“I understood how it felt to feel worthless – a child should never feel like that. I knew I had to help her, just like people helped me. We all deserve to feel beautiful.” Kayley said.
And the girl did feel beautiful. The stylists gave her back some of the dignity that the disease had robbed her of, and she left the salon after and epic transformation, ready to go back to school.
Kayley posted about the incident on her Facebook page, reporting that the girl’s final words to her were:
“I will actually smile for my school’s pictures today, you made me feel like me again.”
Kayley’s original post has now received over 200,000 reactions on Facebook and 79k shares, along with over 13k comments.
Scroll down to see video from Kayley’s appearance on the television show The Doctors.
Unlike normal grief or behavioral changes following a traumatic event like the death of a loved one or the loss of a job, major depression doesn’t need a reason to occur and strikes people from every walk of life.
Symptoms can include everything from negative thinking, an inability to see the positive, lack of focus, withdrawing from things and people you love, exhaustion, insomnia, and uncontrollable suicidal thoughts.
If you know someone suffering from depression, encouraging them to seek professional help could save their lives. If you want to learn more about what teen depression looks like and some ways you can help kids cope, the Mayo Clinic has resources available here.
Watch the full video below.
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