Hence, one no longer needs to maintain a defiant individuality but can live in peace and harmony with the environment, sharing and participating freely, especially with other members of the group. ~ Overeaters Anonymous, Third Edition (Kindle Locations 2550-2551).

Defiant individuality. Was that ever really me?
Openly resisting, boldly disobeying,
the call to be like others. Seeing myself
as a separate existence. Yes. If by separate
I mean lonely, isolated, understood by nobody,
on my own and hated by the world,
a hatred I returned. If by existence I mean
living in a vegetative state, self-medicating with food,
remaining virtually always in a food fog
where feelings could not be felt, words could not penetrate
(oh, but they did, so painfully, so hurtfully, so damaging!)
a state of being around but being so stagnant,
so burnt out, so bummed…

I recall saying, aloud, earnestly, that other people
considered me their friend but I had no friend.
I had no merit, nothing to offer a friendship,
nothing to contribute to a person, to society, to the world…

I had, if nothing else, defiant individualism.
But I need it no more. I have peace, harmony with the world,
can share and participate freely, have my group…
that starts on Wednesday mornings but spreads way past that…
throughout the state, to Louisiana, to all of Region Three
and to the whole wide world. I’m an individual.
But I have a family of my choosing, those I know
and those I’ve yet to meet, who make wherever I am
home.