According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression, and nearly 7% of the USA have at least one depressive episode over the course of one year. The illness is aggressive, debilitating, and affects everybody in different ways – sometimes making it hard to spot, and even harder to treat.
For some sufferers, depression and other mental health problems can cause an urge to self-harm. Sometimes these desires can be controlled with medication or other coping mechanisms, but often they become strong compulsions, and those who are afflicted with such urges end up with severe scarring.
Aoife Lovett, a 19-year-old from Ireland, had multiple scars across her forearm as a result of mental health problems she had struggled with earlier in her teenage years. Despite the wounds having healed over, they still showed quite prominently – and Aoife hated seeing them.
“It’s very hard when you’re a couple of years clean from doing it and every day you’re constantly reminded of what you did. It brings back memories of how you felt then”
Aoife wanted to cover up them with tattoos, but all artists she reached out to refused to work with scarred skin. Except one
After taking a look at Aoife’s scars, Ryan Kelly began covering them up for free
In the end, Ryan was able to put something beautiful over something ugly
“It gives you a new sense of freedom and you get your confidence back”
Ryan launched his project Scars Behind Beauty in February when another woman contacted him for the same reason Aoife did
“At the end of that it didn’t really feel right to charge her. It kind of felt like it meant more to her than that”
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