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On TLC’s Welcome to Plathville season 2, which premiered on Nov. 10, the Christian fundamentalist Plath family wrestled with major divisions and ongoing conflicts. Several of the older Plath children flew the coop in protest of their parents’ strict rules.

The Plaths were now divided into four households – with parents Kim and Barry Plath living with five of their nine kids in one house; married couple Ethan and Olivia Plath living just a few blocks down in small-town rural Georgia; 19-year-old Micah Plath and 17-year-old Moriah Plath living as roommates; and Hosanna Plath in Ohio with her husband, Timothy Noble.

Micah revealed on the Welcome to Plathville season premiere that, since moving out of his parents’ home, he was living an entirely different lifestyle. The 19-year-old was now dating regularly and even embarking on a modeling career that his parents would certainly have frowned upon.

Micah said he was proud of his new physique

On the Welcome to Plathville season premiere, Micah debuted his new look. He’d been spending a lot of time in the gym, he explained, and he was eager to show off the results of his hard work.

Kim and Barry kicked Micah and his sister Moriah out of the house after they refused to follow family rules – including no sugar, no dating, no cell phones, only modest clothing, and no social media. Micah explained that he’d spend the last year in a period of discovery. He bought himself a phone and had begun to attract attention on social media, often with revealing photos of himself and his new physique.

“I’ve been learning who I am, who I want to be,” the Welcome to Plathville star said proudly. “I’ve never stopped working on my body…I love being able to post pictures or videos and see what feedback I get.”

The teen, who now worked at an auto body shop in addition to pursuing a career in modeling, explained that his new ventures were about more than just his body. They also signified freedom, growing independence, and newfound self-confidence.

“Growing up, it was shameful to show your body, and it was considered disrespectful to other people,” Micah said. “Coming out of that and going into the world, especially the world of social media, I’ve just come such a long way in being comfortable with my body and what I look like. I’ve also worked really hard for that, and I’m not scared to show my progress.”

He also started dating while living on his own

Sharing that his new life on his own – and out from under his parents’ watchful eye – was “pretty awesome,” Micah said he’d used social media to form more in-person connections. He especially loved being able to have some privacy and the freedom to date without supervision, which was strictly forbidden in the Plath household.

“It’s given me a lot of opportunities to have fun, meet new people, and go on dates with new girls,” Micah said of social media.

The Welcome to Plathville star had one girl in particular that he seemed to have quite the flirty friendship with. Micah described Helena as a “very close friend,” whom he met on his first-ever modeling shoot. Since then, they’d kept in touch and developed a bit of a crush on each other.

“Helena has helped me get out of my comfort zone and feel comfortable with who I am,” Micah revealed.

On the season premiere, Micah and Helena got especially flirty on a video call – while she was in a swimsuit and he was in nothing but a towel – and agreed to pose for an upcoming photo shoot together. (And things between them got pretty intimate, judging by the looks of next week’s preview.)

The 19-year-old aspiring model said he wasn’t allowed to visit his siblings

Despite the happiness he’d found through his newfound independence, Micah’s new life had some downsides. In particular, he lamented not being able to spend time with his siblings alone. He hadn’t seen any of them in four months, in fact.

“I’m really not allowed to see my younger siblings unless my parents are there, because of my lifestyle,” the Welcome to Plathville star revealed sadly. His parents’ lack of trust disappointed him, and he was upset about not being able to build more of a bond with his brothers and sisters.

As for the aspects of his “lifestyle” that his parents didn’t approve of, Micah explained they included “pop culture, music, social media, and anything with cell phones in general.”

“Those are some of the biggest things my parents have a problem with my younger siblings being around and exposed to,” he went on to say.

Of their choice not to allow Micah to see his younger siblings, Kim told TLC producers, “There’s just some trust that needs to be built back up.”

“We’ve seen things in Micah that we don’t want to rub off on [his siblings],” she explained, “like bitterness against us, for example.”

Needless to say, Micah and his parents struggled to find new footing as they entered this new phase of their relationship. What’s more, Micah admitted that he sometimes still resented Kim and Barry – not for their rules, but for what he considered to be their lack of preparation to help him succeed in the real world.

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