ABOUT
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Information We May Collect
We collect personal information from you so that we can provide you with a positive experience when utilizing our Website or content. We will only collect the minimum amount of information necessary for us to fulfill our obligation to you. We may collect:
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Other Information We May Collect:
Anonymous Data Collection and Use
To maintain Website quality, we may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer the Website by identifying which areas of the Website are most heavily used, and to display content according to your preferences. Your IP address is the number assigned to computers connected to the Internet. This is essentially “traffic data” which cannot personally identify you but is helpful to us for marketing purposes and for improving our services. Traffic data collection does not follow a user’s activities on any other websites in any way. Anonymous traffic data may also be shared with business partners and advertisers on an aggregate basis.
Use of “Cookies”
We may use the standard “cookies” feature of major web browsers. We do not set any personally identifiable information in cookies, nor do we employ any data-capture mechanisms on our Website other than cookies. You may choose to disable cookies through your own web browser’s settings. However, disabling this function may diminish your experience on our Website and some features may not work as intended.
What We Do With Information We Collect
Contact You
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Process Payments
We will use the Personal Data you give to us in order to process your payment for the purchase of goods or services under a contract. We only use third party payment processors that take the utmost care in securing data and comply with the GDPR.
Targeted Social Media Advertisements
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Viewing by Others
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Submission, Storage, Sharing and Transferring of Personal Data
Personal Data that you provide to us is stored internally or through a data management system. Your Personal Data will only be accessed by those who help to obtain, manage, or store that information, or who have a legitimate need to know such Personal Data (i.e., our hosting provider, newsletter provider, payment processors, or team members).
It is important to note that we may transfer data internationally. For users in the European Union, please be aware that we transfer Personal Data outside of the European Union. By using our Website and providing us with your Personal Data, you consent to these transfers in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Data Retention
We retain your Personal Data for the minimum amount of time necessary to provide you with the information and / or services that you requested from us. We may include certain Personal Data for longer periods of time if necessary for legal, contractual, and accounting obligations.
Confidentiality
We aim to keep the Personal Data that you share with us confidential. Please note that we may disclose such information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that: (1) such action is necessary to protect and defend our rights or property or those of our users or licensees, (2) to act as immediately necessary in order to protect the personal safety or rights of our users or the public, or (3) to investigate or respond to any real or perceived violation of this Privacy Policy or of our Disclaimer, Terms and Conditions, or any other terms of use or agreement with us.
Passwords
To use certain features of the Website or its content, you may need a username and password. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the username and password, and you are responsible for all activities, whether by you or by others, that occur under your username or password and within your account. We cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to protect your username, password, or account information. If you share your username or password with others, they may be able to obtain access to your Personal Data at your own risk.
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We will use our best efforts to keep your username and password(s) private and will not otherwise share your password(s) without your consent, except as necessary when the law requires it or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary, particularly when disclosure is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to others or interfering with our rights or property.
How You Can Access, Update, or Delete Your Personal Data
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Security
We take commercially reasonable steps to protect the Personal Data you provide to us from misuse, disclosure, or unauthorized access. We only share your Personal Data with trusted third parties who use the same level of care in processing your Personal Data. That being said, we cannot guarantee that your Personal Data will always be secure due to technology or security breaches. Should there be a data breach of which we are aware, we will inform you immediately.
Anti-Spam Policy
We have a no spam policy and provide you with the ability to opt-out of our communications by selecting the unsubscribe link at the footer of all emails. We have taken the necessary steps to ensure that we are compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 by never sending out misleading information. We will not sell, rent, or share your email address.
Third Party Websites
We may link to other websites on our Website. We have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of any other individual, company, or entity whose website or materials may be linked to our Website or its content, and thus we cannot be held liable for the privacy of the information on their website or that you voluntarily share with their website. Please review their privacy policies for guidelines as to how they respectively store, use, and protect the privacy of your Personal Data.
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance
We do not collect any information from anyone under 18 years of age in compliance with COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) and the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation of the EU). Our Website and its content is directed to individuals who are at least 18 years old or older.
Notification of Changes
We may use your Personal Data, such as your contact information, to inform you of changes to the Website or its content, or, if requested, to send you additional information about us. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, or otherwise alter our Website, its content, and this Privacy Policy at any time. Such changes and/or modifications shall become effective immediately upon posting our updated Privacy Policy. Please review this Privacy Policy periodically. Continued use of any of information obtained through or on the Website or its content following the posting of changes and/or modifications constituted acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy. Should there be a material change to our Privacy Policy, we will contact you via email or by a prominent note on our Website.
Data Controller and Processors
We are the data controllers as we are collecting and using your Personal Data. We use trusted third parties as our data processors for technical and organizational purposes, including for payments and email marketing. We use reasonable efforts to make sure our data processors are GDPR-compliant.If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at graeme@graemeseabrook.com
Last Updated: January 2025
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon.
A friend of mine wrote a Facebook post some weeks back that has stuck with me. She said that she keeps having to start over. Or is it getting to start over? And which way should she think of it?
I don't know. I do know that I'm grateful each morning that I get to start over. That I get another chance to be a mother, a girlfriend, a daughter, a sister, a business owner, a friend, an advocate. I get to try once again to pick myself up off the mat, dust myself off and charge into battle.
BUT.
Holy shit is it disheartening to have to start over. And over, and over, and over. Especially when you KNOW that you will just have to start over again. This is one of the frustrations of mental illness and one of the hardest things to explain to others. My friends out there with chronic diseases know what I mean. You can make a general outline of how you'd like the day to go, you can set up a to-do list, but so much of your life is completely out of your hands.
There are things I can do to manage my illness — eat well, exercise, talk therapy, meditation, scheduling, community, and medication are all tools in my arsenal. At the moment I am using all of them to some degree except for medication. Still — there are things that can pop up and take over your day.
Let me give you an example:
I can't deal with clutter. It raises my anxiety levels, which make me feel powerless, which leads to anger and rage and eventually depression. It's a fun little cycle that I run in full or in miniature at least once a week. I run it because our house is tiny, we have a toddler, I have limited energy, and clutter does not bother Adam in the least. He honestly doesn't notice it.
If it would be possible to have nothing at all on any flat surface in our house I think I would lay down and die of joy. If everything could just have a place to live and then go live there, well, I don't even know how I would react to that kind of happiness. Right now there just isn't a home for everything. So every day I fight the clutter war — how much can I deal with looking at vs. how much energy and time do I have to expend on picking up?
This morning, I woke up feeling closed in. There is too much stuff everywhere (which is true) and I can't make room for myself here (which is not, but feels like it is). The things in the house become judgments. They become symbols. The couch in the office means that having room for his parents three times a year is more important to Adam than my having a place to work. The absolute jumble in the kitchen means that I don't have the wherewithal to take care of my family or myself. The crap scattered across the living room means that we are trashy people who don't love our son enough to give him a clean home.
Are these things true? Of course not. Tomorrow, they will sound even more ridiculous to me than they sound right now as I type this. Hopefully the day after that, this feeling will have faded even more. Today, though, they feel absolutely true and they hurt. The idea behind the thought may not be real, the thought may be false, but the pain is real and true and deep.
What triggered all of this? The recycling bin is full. That's it. That's all it takes. The miracle in all this is that I was able to pinpoint one thing that was my trigger today. I can't begin to explain what it's like to actually know what's making me crazy for once!
Thankfully today it made me angry. It made me motivated. So today I'll clean and throw away and reorganize and plan and obsess and get frustrated and probably throw something and, yes, my entire afternoon will now be about this. If I'm lucky, I'll get half of what was planned for today actually completed. And that's okay. This is how my days work sometimes — things go off the rails. I said 'thankfully' above because it could have gone another way — blame and shame and guilt and then fatigue and tears and me on the couch or in bed and not being able to get up.
It isn't every day. It isn't every week. It's less and less and I'm getting better and better at managing my triggers and creating the type of life that has wiggle room for when the bad days do occur. I'm getting better and better at recognizing the lying thoughts and letting them move through my mind without dwelling on them. I'm getting better and better at asking for help and setting myself up for success. I'm getting better and better. Every morning I get to start over. Some mornings you just have to start over.
P.S. Turns out, it's not just me — check out this article on clutter and depression and anxiety.
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