On the road to self-acceptance. Skin Tight‘s Wednesday, March 8, episode focuses on a social worker who has undergone a stunning body transformation but is embarrassed by her excess skin, as seen in Us Weekly‘s exclusive sneak peek.
Ashley, a 24-year-old from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, previously weighed 400 pounds before getting gastric-bypass surgery at age 21. She now is down to 180 pounds but is uncomfortable with being seen in public.
“To me, the excess skin is disgusting,” she tells the camera in the TLC series’ preview clip. “It’s like Silly Putty or Play-Doh. It makes me feel ugly, and I wish it was gone.”
She continues, “I’m probably the healthiest I’ve ever been, which is amazing. But it’s hard to be happy with the way I look right now. When I look at myself I think, ‘Look how far I’ve come.’ But then it’s like, ‘This is what I get for losing this much weight.’ I was that kid that was the heavyset one out of my entire class. … I was bullied quite a bit.”
Ashley says that immediately following the weight-loss procedure, she had renewed energy and was more excited to socialize than she had ever been before. But her mood quickly shifted. “I was loving my active social life, but I began to withdraw as soon as I started noticing the skin — it was sagging all over my body,” she says. “Looking at my skin, I feel like a deflated balloon. I feel shriveled up. I feel disgusting.”
Watch the clip above. Skin Tight airs on TLC Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET.
