About the girl…

Caroline Knowles

Currently living in Austin with my pup, Cassie, & the new addition to our family, my cat, Olive. During the week I work in marketing for a tech company, but in my off time I enjoy cooking, reading, the outdoors, journaling, cuddles with Cassie & Olive, spoiling my nieces, spending time with friends & family, traveling (because who doesn’t), & watching repeats of the Office or binging Netflix.

I was born & raised in a “little” town in Massachusetts, with 2 amazing parents, 2 older sisters & 1 younger brother. We grew up in a very normal & loving household, where we were taught to treat everyone with respect.

We spent most of our time with either my dad’s family in Marshfield or with my mom’s family in Revere stuffing our faces with Italian food. When we weren’t with family, we were with friends, playing sports or being dragged to each other’s games, dance classes, collecting the hot collection item of the moment (i.e. beanie babies, pogs, Pokemon card, baseball cards) or fighting over who gets to play the Sims or Mario Kart next.

Behind the smile

Growing up, I smiled so often that I even had a teacher jokingly tell me that I smiled too much. Friends, friend’s parents, peers, teachers, literally anyone I came in contact with would ask me how I was so happy & upbeat all the time. They were genuinely curious as to how someone could smile so often & always in a good mood.

Well you see, I’ve always been upbeat, outgoing, positive, personable, confident & funny from time to time. From an outsider’s perspective, I seemed like I had my life all together, when in reality that was far from the truth.

What most people didn’t know, and many still aren’t aware of, is I suffer from anxiety & depression.

I won’t get into details as I will save that for my blog…but as someone who deals with depression, I never wanted anyone else to feel the pain I felt. Which is why as soon as I left my house I put on my smile & played my role as the happy, positive girl.

I’m hoping to change the stigma in the US that we have around mental health. We are allowed to have mental health disabilities so long as we don’t talk about them or burden anyone with our problems. Our society is uncomfortable talking about feelings & mental health, until another celebrity takes their own life. I want to normalize being vocal about mental health. I want others to know that they aren’t alone, and even in the darkest times, there is always a light at the tunnel. I hope that my stories can help others dealing with mental illness & maybe educate others, who aren’t personally dealing with a mental illness but have loved ones that are.