to not want to do training on something that I’m not sure even exists?

[pastiesh]

AIBU to want to just get on with my work, and not be requested to participate in 3 hours (over 3 days) of training on something which I think it a bit irrelavant to me? We have recently had to have some training on ?Post Adoption Depression Syndrome? as a colleague who has recently adopted, and is coming back to work, is claiming to be suffering from it. I?m just a bit annoyed that work time is taken up with this, at a time when me and most of my colleagues are especially busy with lots of projects on, just to pussyfoot around someone who has a new baby - like so many of us have!! When I had my baby, no one did training on how to deal with my PND.
To be perfectly honest, after listening to all the training and doing a bit of reading myself, I just think it?s another example of this crazy PC world we now live in, and while she may be struggling with becoming a parent, I think it?s a bit insulting to compare it to Post Natal Depression, as that is hormonal and physiological and I fail to see how the two can be compared. I would never say all this to her, or to anyone at work (which is why I wanted to vent on here, really) and I probably am being a bit unreasonable, but she is just one member of a thirty-strong workforce, and I feel as though we are being taken away from important work, just to be seen to be doing the right thing - and something I?m not even sure exists outside of the politically correct brigade.

bloody hell - that poor woman!

Thinking about it, it sounds a bit odd to me, that the company that refused to pay for visits to social workers is suddenly spending lots of money training their entire staff.

Have they been put under pressure by unions/legal threats etc.?

I hope that your colleague has given permission for her medical details to be discussed by all and sundry. If not, then it is possible that the company are hoping this will be the final straw and she will choose to leave.

aside from the training of work colleagues issue, could it be the use of the term ?Post Adoption Depression Syndrome? which is contentious? i hope no one would dare doubt that the stress of adoption could cause depression, but the term ?Post Adoption Depression Syndrome? seems unhelpful. isn't it better to say that someone has depression caused by the adoption process.

by the same token we could have ?Post divorce Depression Syndrome? or ?Post bereavement Depression Syndrome?- it sounds like an unneccesary label.

it sounds as if someone has written a paper on adoption and the common and subsequent depression, and has come up with the term PADS to get recognition for their research.

if i had pads i am unsure if i would find this label helpful- what do others think? i'm adopted and if i was told that my mum/ dad had ?Post Adoption Depression Syndrome? i would feel hurt. 'post' implies that it all starts when the child arrives, rather than it aso being related to the process of adoption itself.

also everyone's different but i'd be mortified to know colleagues were having training on how to deal with my deperssion, whatever the cause. i'd call on friends rather than coleagues for help. but i guess everyone's different.

colleagues

I know what you mean katkit, and I?ve not had PADS, but I did have a friend who did suffer from it - and she said to me (during one of our long chats) that the fact that the syndrome had a name and a label helped her out, because it was confirmation for her that it actually existed and wasn?t all in her mind, so assisted her recovery. Maybe because it?s so unknown even amongst adopters?

well according to the training, katkit, ?post? is important, as the transition from prospective parent to parent is when the PADS kicks in.

"I'm sure some people on here with experience in the matter would love to help you." no thanks not me, I've exposed myself enough for one day for someone who doesn't seem clear about what she objects to:

Can an adoption cause significant depression?
Should it be "labelled with a name PADS?
Is it all a conspiracy by the "politically correct brigade" and in reality doesn't exist?
Is the OP just too busy with more important things to do some irrelevant training?

FWIW I think she must be pretty badly depressed to had engaged her previously massively unsympathetic employers - if I'd been her I'd have kept my mouth shut. Particularly if your reactions are indicative of the rest of her colleagues.

Kitkat - do you feel that birth children feel hurt that their mother might have post natal depression? It is definitely "post" adoption depression though of course the process does contribute.

"I can?t help the way I think" - if this is true OP I think some counselling might be in order.

PADS has more research than that link from memory it started being researched in the early 90's. There is little research in the UK as generally we live in an anti-adoption environment unlike the US where culturally it is more "normal".

Frankly I think its all irrelevant - you have decided that PADS doesn't exist and is a trendy label and you are really pissed off at being forced to listen to someone bang on about it when you could be off discovering a cure for cancer (or typing out invoices, whatever). You're entitled to your opinion, luckily I don't have to give it any more headroom.

Once upon a time I was an employment lawyer and, as already pointed out by a few posters (Iamamug, Zzenagain) OP's employers are, to put it prosaically, shitting themselves and the training is all some kind of horrible damage limitation/bolted empty stable/ horse reported missing exercise. Parental leave policies should include adoption.

If I was adopter I would now be even more hacked off with employers drawing attention to me specifically with entire training debacle when all they had to do was follow the law in the first place. I would be afraid there would be colleagues thinking like Op out there.

OP - I think you need to get past the semantics. As other posters have so eloquently articulated, adoption brings its own set of challenges and issues, and with any life altering event (as simultaneously joyous as it may be) demands a lot of adjustment and time.

If you can accept not all depression has to have a physiological cause (e.g. PTSD is generally linked to specific events) but can arise in response to circumstances then PAD is just a name for depression that arises in the unique set of circumstance for adoption. You are being unreasonable for not viewing PAD as real.

However, you are not being unreasonable for resenting having to go the training since if they took that approach to all workplace issues (think of the myriad of personal issues even one small team may be going through: bereavement, divorce, life-threatening illnesses etc) there would not be much work being done. I think most employers (not facing a potential legal claim) would rely on the general empathy of their personnel, which I'm afraid you do sound like you might be a bit lacking in.

Is there a difference in the treatment for different types of depression? PND, PAD, depression after bereavment, depression after miscarriage does it make a difference what the trigger is? I'm not being rhetorical, if someone knows I would be interested to hear.

My family has a history of PND (as I have unfortunately discovered) . However when my grandmother suffered from it some 70 years ago it didn't have a name a name or a label. She was removed from the family home and locked up in the local "lunatic asylym" as it was called and my grandfather had to sign a piece of paper agreeing she was "insane" and could receive electric shock treatment !!! Personally I'm glad that over the years research has allowed us to discover the true nature of PND and give it a name/label and allow appropriate treatment. Pastiesh 80 years ago PND did not exist in the eyes of the medical establishment maybe in 80 years time people will find it hard to believe that PAD
wasn't recognised and treated appropriately.

TheCoalition Broadly, no. Medication and/or Psychological therapy, of one sort or another.

Jamie - that's what I suspected. So the labels generally mean 'look, this person is PROPERLY depressed there is a reason and everything' when we should just be able to say the person is depressed and get it taken seriously.

Yes, that's what I think, TheCoalition

kewcumber- just seen this, sorry. i spose they might feel hurt if they knew their mum had PND, much the same as an adopted child. but i guess i would use 'hormones' to explain it to the child, if it was me. it's just that part of the whole way my adoption was handled was by telling it like a happy story. (i don't think i know the half of it).

I guess we have differnt perspectives katkit and of course I am coming at it srom the opposite side of the fence. But PAD is no more about the specific child than PND is - in fact its little to do with the child and 100% to do with the parent.

But then I don;t tell DS his adoption story as a happy story because it is an even that came out of a profound loss to him and his birth mother. He will be in no doubt that I was very lucky to get him over anyone else, but I don't expect him to celebrate the happy circumstances of his adoption!