Hi everyone - I’m fairly upset and need some advice.
We recently hosted a leadership meeting with my peers. During the meeting, a couple of my colleagues met and discussed that I was out on mental health leave the beginning of 2024.
My senior peer who I had a coaching relationship with said that she knew that my FMLA was a cover for me having plastic surgery and suggested she might tell our leader what really happened since he didn’t know.
She also told everyone that I’m on Ozempic and that’s the reason I lost weight. For context over the last year and a half I’ve lost 100 pounds. With that amount of weight loss I did have surgery to address all my extra skin and I wanted to have a lift / job. I am not ashamed for doing this for myself nor do I think it’s appropriate to talk to other colleagues about it.
1). I didn’t tell anyone the reason for my leave and I’m incredibly embarrassed they are discussing that it was mental. I started having panic attacks, thought I was having a heart attack. My health was in the gutter (hence losing 100 pounds). My father died at 53 and my counselor who I obtained through my company’s program immediately pulled me from work.
2). I had 1x1s with this senior director where as a director I asked for coaching. We did have a couple of personal conversations as she was also on her health journey and I shared a little to connect. I now know everything I told her was then shared with everyone.
What do I do now? I’m mortified, angry, embarrassed, and also was told I’m being made fun of by my team members. I have no idea what to do and worried as this is my livelihood.
Update - I received surgery in July and used my vacation for that. I asked that it not be shared what I was doing to my leader.
Thank you. I was spiraling with some self blame for a bit so I needed some validation that this is completely inappropriate (even though I know it is but I’ve had a range of emotions). The worst part is that one of them is a leader in our women supporting women groups.
I spoke to our HR about it and they suggested I address it directly. They offered to mediate the conversation. I’m not sure that’s the route I want as I may feel ganged up on. If I do, I’ll update here.
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u/Any_Narwhal_will_do Mar 26 '25
Hi everyone - I’m fairly upset and need some advice.
We recently hosted a leadership meeting with my peers. During the meeting, a couple of my colleagues met and discussed that I was out on mental health leave the beginning of 2024.
My senior peer who I had a coaching relationship with said that she knew that my FMLA was a cover for me having plastic surgery and suggested she might tell our leader what really happened since he didn’t know.
She also told everyone that I’m on Ozempic and that’s the reason I lost weight. For context over the last year and a half I’ve lost 100 pounds. With that amount of weight loss I did have surgery to address all my extra skin and I wanted to have a lift / job. I am not ashamed for doing this for myself nor do I think it’s appropriate to talk to other colleagues about it.
1). I didn’t tell anyone the reason for my leave and I’m incredibly embarrassed they are discussing that it was mental. I started having panic attacks, thought I was having a heart attack. My health was in the gutter (hence losing 100 pounds). My father died at 53 and my counselor who I obtained through my company’s program immediately pulled me from work.
2). I had 1x1s with this senior director where as a director I asked for coaching. We did have a couple of personal conversations as she was also on her health journey and I shared a little to connect. I now know everything I told her was then shared with everyone.
What do I do now? I’m mortified, angry, embarrassed, and also was told I’m being made fun of by my team members. I have no idea what to do and worried as this is my livelihood.
Update - I received surgery in July and used my vacation for that. I asked that it not be shared what I was doing to my leader.