‘600-lb Life’: Ashley chose to eat her pain away after being molested as a child, but now her body says no
This episode of TLC’s ‘My 600-lb Life’ deals with a morbidly obese Ashley Bernard, who weighs over 600 pounds. She is a mother to two daughters, Aliyah, 11, and Amiyah, 9.
She isn’t physically capable of doing anything for her family or children. She uses a walker to get around as she can’t stand by herself owing to her enormous frame.
Ashley wants to change herself as this isn’t a life she envisioned for herself or her family. However, when cravings kick in, she just can’t stop eating. She eats all day when she’s home alone. In tonight’s (March 4) episode, Ashley admits that only food brings her happiness and she gets taken to a different place, a good place. She feels she can do anything if she eats what she likes.
Reflecting on the issues that enabled her weight gain, Ashley said that she had a rocky childhood. Her busy parents had hired babysitters to take care of Ashley and her siblings. Life took an unexpected turn for little Ashley when she started getting molested by one of her babysitters on a daily basis. She was too embarrassed to talk about it and often chose to eat the pain away. As she couldn’t do anything or tell anyone about what was happening, she chose to overeat to get bigger and stronger to protect herself.
However, an enormous body wasn’t cooperating with her idea of self-defense. It rather restricted her mobility further and by the time she was 10, Ashley weighed over 300 pounds.
She got pregnant when she was 19. But, the father of her daughter walked out of the relationship, thus leaving her all by herself. Ashley, then left her daughter with her mother as she wasn’t able to be a good mother, owing to her weight issues.
And, when Ashley decided to get her life back on track, she got pregnant with her second daughter Amiyah and faced rejection from her then partner yet again. She once again moved back in with her mother following the birth of her second child seeking help.
She is now 31 and her body has already started to give up. Ashley says her body is signaling her that it can’t go on this way. She wants to lose weight because her children need a mother.
'My 600-lb Life' airs on Wednesdays on TLC.
