Sophie Nixon never thought of getting back to a normal, happy life after being bullied at school for losing her hair, until she joined a summer camp held by a special support group for children suffering from hair loss, reports the Daily Mail.

Here is a story we don’t get to hear too often, a 13-year-old girl who, once contemplating suicide, found a new meaning for living. Sophie used to be bullied in school for the patchy hair loss she experienced a couple of years back. Unbeknownst to her, it was alopecia areata, a type of baldness that is linked to hereditary as well as environmental factors.

The young girl came to know about her condition last year, after she started losing her hair and became completely bald in just six weeks. She locked herself in her room and thought about committing suicide. The help she so badly needed came from an unexpected quarter – a support group named ‘Be Bold’ organised a unique camp for bald children and she joined the camp along with 40 other children.

Alopecia areata is among the ten most common types of hair loss experienced by people from all around the world, with androgenic alopecia aka male pattern baldness being the most prevalent. Experts believe that these cases occur mainly because of genetic factors and partly because of environmental factors. While the condition Sophie is living through has no known cure, fortunately we have a medication like Propecia for treating male pattern hair loss effectively.