The Twelve-Week Truth: What Nobody Told Me About the Psychology of a Facelift
It’s finally here. I’ve reached my 12-week follow-up from my full lower facelift, neck lift, and upper eyelid surgery, which I had on February 1st. Today, I want to take you inside the first twelve weeks of recovery—not the physical scars you can see, but the psychology of it that nobody bothers to prepare you for. I never hear anyone else talking about this, and I think that’s a problem. So we’re going to talk about it. I want you to know that what you’re feeling is normal. At least, I think it is. Since no one else is saying it, I’m going to claim it as normal—and then we can all feel normal together.
Before we dive deep, let me establish one very important truth right now: Would I do this all over again? Absolutely, 100% yes. I would choose the same month—February—and I would absolutely choose my surgeon again. He did a beautiful job. He told me straight up, "You will still look like you’re in your 50s. You’ll just look really refreshed." And he delivered exactly that. My daughter often tells me from the profile, "Mom, you look really young," and my husband will stop me mid-sentence and say, "You look like you’re in your 40s." But honestly, if you tell me I look like I’m in my 50s, I’m proud of that. I don’t need to look 30 again. I just wanted to look refreshed. That was the goal.
Starting Down the Rabbit Hole
Have you ever decided to redo a room in your home? You start with the walls. You paint them, and you think, "That’s going to make everything look fresh and new." Then suddenly, the cabinets look terrible, so you paint those too. Then the hardware looks ancient, so you buy all new knobs and pulls. Next thing you know, you’re replacing the lighting fixture and the faucet. It’s a classic story, right? We’ve all been there.
A facelift works the same way. You get it done, and you start thinking, "Well, now that my cheeks are lifted, maybe I should fix that little spot over there." I can see exactly how women fall down the rabbit hole—how they get addicted to surgery, wanting to fix every little tweak. But here’s the thing: I walked into this with clear eyes. My surgeon and I sat down and talked about the plan. He said, "I’d rather pull too little than too much," and I agreed completely. That’s actually one of the reasons I chose him. He is already that type of surgeon—he errs on the side of conservative. But even with all that clarity, I still wasn’t prepared for some of what came next.
The Numbness: Feeling Like a Cadaver’s Face
Let’s talk about numbness first. They warn you before surgery. They say, "You will have numbness, usually on the outskirts of the face—the neck, behind the ears where there is a lot of scarring. It can last up to a year, and sometimes feeling never fully returns." I heard those words. I agreed to them. I thought I was prepared. But hearing it intellectually and experiencing it are two completely different things.
The closest I can describe it to is when you get Novocaine at the dentist. For a few hours, you can pinch your lip and feel absolutely nothing. That is exactly what it’s like—except it lasts for months. When you’ve seen me in videos patting my face and saying, "Oh, it feels so gross," that’s because it doesn’t feel like I’m patting my own face. It feels like I’m patting a cadaver.
Now, 12 weeks in, I would say I’m completely numb about two fingers’ width down from here. My feeling has come back all around the front of my face, but my neck is still numb. I can feel the top of my ears, but I cannot feel the lower part at all. When I put earrings in my holes—I have three in each ear plus a little helix—I have to carefully look for the opening because I cannot feel my ears. It’s weird. My injector gave me a tiny bit of Botox to stop one side from pulling crooked, and that’s fine; I might need that for the rest of my life. But when my surgeon touched my face at my last checkup and asked, "Do you feel this?" and I said, "Not really," his response was, "Yeah, you might never feel that again." They warn you, but hearing it on the other side of surgery hits differently.
The Eyes: I Wasn’t Ready for My Own Eyeballs
Here’s something I absolutely was not prepared for: my eyes. I thought that when he removed the extra skin, my eyes would look young again. But no. He took out the excess skin from my upper lids, and now I have this beautiful eyelid and a nice crease that I didn’t have a few months ago. That part is great. But I still have little fat pockets right here because if you take those out completely, you end up looking hollowed out—like Skeletor. You have to be careful.
What really got me—what nobody talks about—is that our eyeballs are actually sinking back into our heads. Our orbital bones grow bigger and expand like the universe as we age. No surgery in the world can bring your eyeballs back forward. You will never have that youthful forward projection again. I had to sit with that for a while. At first, I wasn’t sure if I loved my eyes. Part of me even missed my hooded eyes because, with hooded eyes, I could do lots of different eye makeup looks. Now, I have a crease, and I barely need to wear eye makeup anymore. You sign up for this, but you’re not really sure what it’s going to look like or how you’re going to feel about it until you’re on the other side. So be mindful: you can get eye surgery, but your eyes will never look 30 again.
The Real Reason I Went In: The Fatty Pockets
All my longtime followers know the real reason I went in for surgery. I had these hereditary fatty pockets right here—right in the lower cheek area. My sister has it, my mom had it, my grandmother had it. My surgeon thought it might be buccal fat, but he went in and discovered it was just regular cheek fat, pure DNA. He did a little liposuction from inside my mouth, but here’s the thing: I had 15 to 20 years of loose skin that stretched out while those fat pockets were getting bigger and then started to sag. Surgery can pull and lift the muscle—this was a deep plane facelift, which lifts the muscle, not just the skin—but it cannot fully erase all the excess skin in that area. It’s much like a pregnant stomach: after nine months of pregnancy, you can only snap back so much.
He told me from day one, "That is an almost impossible area to get rid of completely without CO2 laser." So we have planned all along to do CO2 laser this fall to tighten and shrink that skin. In the meantime, you might still see it in some of my videos. It’s not as bad as it used to be, but it’s still there. I went into this knowing it was a two-step process. But psychologically, I think we all hope the first step will miraculously fix everything. It won’t. You have to be realistic.
The Neck: Texture Over Tightness
Let me tell you about my neck. I thought I was going to have a young, 30-year-old neck again. Wrong. Sun damage is a cruel mistress. He lifted my neck beautifully—he cut behind the ear and in the hairline, pulled as much skin as humanly possible. If he had pulled even a millimeter more, I wouldn’t be able to turn my head. My neck is gorgeous when I’m sitting up with good posture. I have no more sagging bands; he pulled those out, lifted the muscle, and everything is tight.
But here’s the part nobody tells you: the texture of your skin does not change. I still have the same neck creases from years of sun damage. I am really crepey and texturally challenged all down here. When I move a certain way, you can still see some draping and old sun damage. That is not something surgery fixes. Surgery just cuts out extra skin and lifts the muscle. It does not magically resurface your skin. So I’m going in for CO2 laser on my neck and decolletage as well, but now I know: it will tighten it a little bit, but I will never look 30 again. I wasn’t prepared for that wake-up call. I think psychologically, even though we hear the doctors say it, we all secretly think, "But maybe with all this money, I will look really young again." No. You won’t. And that’s okay.
The Little Lumps and Scars
I have this one little lump right here, right at the jawline. My surgeon tells me to massage it every day, and it has gone down by about 50%. It’s where the muscles came together and were banded. There’s a funky little notch there that will eventually go away. As for the scars: they cut your whole ear, lift your face, and reattach everything at the ear. I have a scar behind my ear, on the back of my ear along the crease, and right here where my ear used to just flow into my face—now there is a visible crease. It still grosses me out, but my husband and daughter are hyper-critical, and neither of them has ever said a thing about my ears. Plus, I wear my hair down most of the time anyway.
The Comparison Trap: Your Real Life vs. Their Filter
Here’s another psychological landmine that nobody warned me about: comparison. You will look at other women who had surgery, and you will start asking yourself, "Why does she look younger? Why did her outcome turn out better?" Maybe they had a more aggressive surgeon. Maybe they did it younger. I see a lot of women getting facelifts in their late 40s. Well, 50 to 55 is a huge difference; I looked a lot younger at 50 than I do at 55. You simply cannot compare your outcome to someone else’s. Every surgery is different. Every surgeon is different. Every lifestyle leading up to it is different.
But let me tell you what really opened my eyes. I know someone on social media who had a facelift sometime in the last two years. I was comparing myself to her constantly, wondering why her skin looked so much smoother than mine. Then she did a video with no filter, no beauty mode, and I saw all her texture, her sunspots, her pores, and the lines in her forehead. That’s when it dawned on me: I have been comparing my real life to her filter. She uses filters all the time, and I didn’t realize it. I don’t use filters at all—not on TikTok, not on Instagram, not here. I have professional lighting, but I get real close so you can see the sunspots, the discoloration, the large pores, the forehead lines. It is incredibly unfair for women who are selling beauty, skincare, or procedures to use filters. The FTC should ban it. It should be illegal. If you are selling anything that alters people’s appearance, you should not be altering your own appearance in a video. That is a lie. And once I saw her real skin, I suddenly felt better about my own outcome. I wasn’t failing; I was just fighting a filter.
Complications Are Normal
Because of my videos and my very public recovery journey, I’ve had dozens of women reach out to me on Instagram saying, "I’m going in tomorrow, say a prayer for me," or "I just had it done a few days ago." Almost every single one of them—I’m talking about a dozen women since February—had one or more complications. It’s just a natural part of surgery. There is always going to be something that doesn’t go exactly as planned.
For me, I healed beautifully and quickly. But three weeks after my surgery, when all my stitches were supposed to be out and I was all sealed up, I started leaking from right up here—yellow liquid that looked almost like bile coming out of my stitches just above my ear. Of course, it was a Friday night, and no doctor was available. So I put a Band-Aid on it and stayed chill. By Monday, I called, sent pictures, and the doctor said, "Get in here." When I couldn’t make it that day, he said, "Come Friday," so I waited an entire week. He put me on an antibiotic just to be safe. What happened was that one stitch had been missed when they took the others out, and my skin probably swallowed it up because I was still swollen. After three weeks, my body started trying to reject it. He pulled it out, a little blood and pus came with it, and within a day I was perfectly fine. That was a minor complication.
Other women have had much worse. Some have anesthesia reactions where they throw up right after surgery—I cannot imagine doing that when your whole face is fresh and raw. Some have problems with drains. Some have excessive swelling or delayed healing. I had a friend who had an issue with her ear cartilage healing improperly. The point is: something can go wrong, and it is normal. Always call your surgeon immediately, but don’t panic. It’s part of the process.
Get in Shape Before Surgery
One of my biggest regrets is that I was not in better cardiovascular shape before this surgery. If I had been walking daily, if I had stayed on top of my Pilates, I believe my body would have bounced back much quicker. I spent the entire month of February in bed. I was so tired. Tired begets tired. I was not prepared for how long that recovery would take, and I think my lack of fitness contributed to it.
My mother’s surgeon told her, "I want you getting in shape. I want you losing weight." When she had cancer, her oncologist said, "You have to walk, even if it’s only ten minutes a day. I know you’re sick, but I need you to walk to prepare for this huge surgery." Something as simple as walking out your front door will benefit your healing. If you are considering surgery, get your heart and your cardio in shape. Even if it’s just walking four or five days a week. You will heal faster.
The Final Truth: You Will Still Have Lines, Texture, and Your Own Face
Let me give you the unvarnished truth. A facelift is not a time machine. It lifts, it tightens, it removes extra skin. But at 55, I still have sun damage. I still have creases on my neck. I still have large pores and forehead lines. Skin texture does not change. When I was still swollen around week 11, I looked incredible. But once the swelling settled, my real face returned—just a little higher, a little fresher. That’s it.
I also want to address something I get criticized for constantly: I do not Botox my forehead. Whenever we have tried, it forces my brows down and makes me look angry. I hate that look. I am an expressive person, and I want to keep my expressions. So the forehead lines stay. I am okay with that. My crow’s feet actually got a little better from the CO2 laser, but I’m not worried about those either.
And those cheeks you see? People on TikTok accuse me of having cheek filler or cheek implants daily. I’ve never had either. Those are my cheeks. I’ll show you a picture from high school—they have always been just like this. They are a little higher and tighter now because the deep plane facelift lifts everything up and out. But that’s it. That’s the face God gave me.
A Closing Thought for the Journey
I do not recommend being public about this. It is not for the faint of heart. I did it publicly because I am always looking for teaching moments, for ways to help others with my experience. But the comments on TikTok have been brutal lately. Paula’ Choice boosted one of my videos, it got about 2 million views, and the meanest comments come from women—some of them are moms with young babies. I think to myself, "You are raising a child, and you are talking to other adults like this?" Then they delete their comments because they get embarrassed. Other times, an older woman might tear me down because she didn’t take good care of her skin, or maybe she had a really rough life that shows on her face, and she lashes out. It’s a strange world.
Nobody judges you for a tummy tuck or breast implants or veneers or a nose job. But get a facelift in your 50s, and suddenly people are mad about it. I don’t understand why it bothers people so much. It’s nobody’s business.
If you are considering surgery, I hope this helps you psychologically. Because there is a lot of psychology that goes into healing. You have to be ready to sit with your own face, your own texture, your own age. You have to stop comparing your reality to other people’s filters. And you have to remember: you are never going to look 30 again. But you can look like a really great version of yourself—a refreshed, lifted version that knows exactly who she is.
And that is more than enough.