48, Time to Heal the Face and Body :) - Atlanta, GA

The first part of my life was very hard. My heart and mind were healed long ago from the rough start. Now it is time to see if my face and body can be healed.

I have tried to help my body with good exercise and eating habits since my early thirties, but the bad start from my teens is catching back up with me. I was a teenage run away from abuse, raped, and went through a pregnancy at 16 with almost no personal care. Food for the baby's development, not skin care, was my goal. The child was born healthy but my skin didn't fair well. At first during the pregnancy, i was starving and my body was tiny. Then i put on weight too quickly after finally gaining access to decent food. I have stretch marks and droopy skin on my tummy, upper thighs, and upper arms with additional and extensive stretch marks on my butt and breasts. (The child, if you are wondering, was given up for adoption because I had no resources as a runaway and had no self confidence after the [RS bleep] to be caring for a child. My greatest gift of love was to give the child up to a good home and that is what I did.) And after the delivery, I went through a large bout of cycstic acne and, once again, had no health care. The scaring on my face was extensive and left me feeling very bad about myself until I sought help in my late twenties. Seeking and getting help healed my heart and mind, but I still didn't have finances to make any changes to my appearance back then.

A physician who learned about my story gave me a pro-bono hospitalized dermabrasion ten years ago, at age 38, for the facial scaring. That was very helpful. It didn't remove all of the scars but the improvements were wonderful to me. I went to college after that and earned a degree. I love to smile. The dermabrasion changed my world.

And all the skin damage on my body wasn't so noticeable when I was younger because I do love to exercise and my skin was much more elastic, but my skin has been changing over the last ten years. My face skin is drooping too now and it looks bad with the remaining scaring. My neutral facial position looks unhappy when I'm actually not. I can't wait to have a true neutral expression again!

And I find it all ironic because I'm probably in the best physical condition of my life now along with being sincerely happy and stronger than ive ever been, but the damage and aging leaves enough slack to have to hide the extra skin and look tired in the face. I want to be on the outside who I am on the inside. But I'm going to have to take these surgeries in stages over a period of years to afford them.

I am starting with my face; a lower face lift and lower blepharoplasty. It's scheduled for November 5th. Very few people know about my past and none that know me now would ever guess. It's not something I talk about much anymore, but shared it here because I appreciate the support this site allows all of us as we have each come to this place experienced after walking through our own individual trials to get to the point of needing surgery; if it be the genetics of aging, extensive weight loss, damage from thr past, or any number of other things that life has thrown our way.

I can't wait for my smile to show on the outside as much as I do on the inside!!!! Gosh I wish it were November already. Everyone at Dr Z's is so nice. I can't wait for my neutral facial expression to no longer look sad or tired!!!!! Peace be with you all!! :)

These are without make-up and trying to share my worse. I'm suddenly grateful for hair and make-up and that I hopefully never look quite this bad in public. I can't wait to smile afterward!!!!!!! :)

Why I need a FL....this week, we are going through a major restructuring at work. Tuesday was staffing reductions, Wednesday was office location reductions, and today was my closest peer coming back to work to be immediately terminated after 27 years of service, and Friday ends with an afternoon conference call of how we will be told to do amazing feats without enough staff. This is not the first time. We did a big reorganization in 2011 too. My organization has been struggling for several years now and I work tremendous hours holding more than one full-time position and not being paid very much. I've stuck with the organization for the last five years because I love my work, but I look at the photos from a few years back and the photos from today and, yes, there is aging and damage going on, but there is also stress going on. And no amount of exercise and eating right is going to be able to equalize the level of stress we are all under.

Many of my closest peers have been leaving over the last few months knowing that this next wave of change was coming and they've been encouraging me to leave too, but I've been holding on to achieve a couple of person goals first.

Well, the person goals have now been achieved and the only thing left is some medical stuff and the FL. I'm having vein closure done in each leg (for medical reasons, not cosmetic) and understand the process has very good outcomes. A dear friend is also getting it done ahead of me. Her second leg is done tomorrow. She is 20 years older than I, but I have more damage than she. My right leg will be done on October 3 and the left on Oct 17. Both surgeons said it wouldn't matter if the FL or legs were done first. So I opted to do the legs then the FL.

I'm going to find something less stressful that will still be passionate for me after the FL is done and healed enough. And maybe it will even be a better paying position if people don't think my face looks unhappy when it's neutral!!!! LOL So, I need an older photo posted tonight to balance out all the recent unflattering photos I posted. This photo was taken after my dermabrasion had healed. Makeup was covering the remaining scars and I was very happy and it showed. I want my happiness to show again. Anyway....the photo is between 8 and 10 years old. I think I was 38 - that would make it ten years old.