Sarah Khan

When I tell people that I keep a box of tampons on my desk at work, they are either surprised or they want to know why. As if keeping a box of tampons on my desk is any different than the box of Scooby-Doo Band-Aids or the bulk candy I keep on there as well.

For the last six years, I have been living with depression. Despite the fact that I have extremely low moments when there is an inexplicable and unreachable pain inside me that demotes me into a sobbing, self-harming, low self-esteemed shell of the person that I actually am, there are a number of ways that living with (not suffering from) depression has improved my life and made me a better human being.

It isn’t until I actually sat down and thought about it that I realized that the badass feminist babe I am today is predominantly the creation of a mixed bag of women I’ve encountered in my life.

If you haven’t thought of Dorothy Parker (known as Dot or Dottie) since English Literature in high school that needs to change as soon as possible. All modern day women should turn to the goddess Parker, for lessons on how to survive in a man’s world.

What a lot of us don’t realize is that the patriarchy also makes us think it’s OK to objectify men.

I’m proud to say my mother is a supporter of SlutWalk, is staunchly against victim-blaming, and all for empowering women. But when it comes to me, her ideals seem to change.

Thanks to a number of different stressful factors, I was sent to the Centre For Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) emergency department recently at the "professional advice" (read: insistence) of my general physician. This all happened because I admitted to planning the care of my beloved cats in case I killed myself.