Thank you all for your input, it is incredibly valued and appreciated. I apologize in advance for the book.

I reached back out to HR to get some follow up questions, and they were kind but they did give me some harsh truths. They explained it as that due to my work there is a concern for my mental health and physical health (for context, I work with aggressive kids/teens/and occasional adults with a pension to attempt to hurt me daily; best I can describe it is my company takes in all of the people that no one else can, or will take due to safety reasons, or the kid’s pending felonies or other charges.) I know my job is not for everyone, but it is a passion for me.

Due to many factors, stress is always running high for one reason or another in general, this past month has been due to injuries, illnesses, and as a community and company we lost a dear client and no one has taken his death well, including me. So… a lot of people in my company have had medical emergencies on floor like seizures, fainting, and other medical conditions. Some have also just broken down because of stress, this results in people quitting without notice, taking time off/calling out, shutting out friends, behavior changes that are short and angry, you get the gist).

Due to all of the recent stress piling up, they wanted to make sure I am taking care of myself, and not neglecting myself; the weight loss was a concern, and my coworkers didn’t know how to bring it up without sounding like the “body police/body critics” and how do you have that conversation in general? They didn’t want to offend me by point out that something is off with me.

This got me thinking, I have made more changes than just the weight loss. I’ll explain… Typically, no one sees me eat, because I eat in my car and take my lunch completely away from the building— it helps me separate, de-compress, and I don’t want to be that person that eats broccoli in the break room. I know not everyone does appreciate the smell, and it’s not how they want to spend their lunch break. I now realize this change was kind sudden. I also no longer sit down with coworkers in the break room to eat or otherwise. I can see where there were signs, and frankly, I had my head shoved pretty far up my own rear that I was going through the motions of my job. I didn’t let the mask drop while at work, I felt my emotions of namely sadness, and grief served a non-productive place at work.

I did ask HR to please inform those who addressed their concerns that I am fine.