Fight!

It amazes me how bad things can get sometimes.

My stress level lately has just been through the absolute roof. And it is taking so much of a toll on me. I lost my grandma the day before Thanksgiving, Christmas was crap because of that, money has been an issue lately, I’m trying to avoid certain obvious temptations in my life, my living situation isn’t the best right now, I’m worried about so many things that I know I really shouldn’t be. And as if all that hasn’t been enough, today marks the first time in at least eight years that I’ve been in any sort of a physical fight with anyone. And it happened to be with my brother.

Over the course of this last year, he has been increasingly nasty toward me. I don’t know what his problem is. If I say anything he disagrees up front with me. If I disagree with him about anything, he automatically gets all in my face about it. He talks down to me, ignores me, tries to twist my words around, purposefully tries to belittle and make me look bad in front of his kids, and then today, in the middle of an argument (one of a few dozen already in the last year), he charged at me and began throwing punches. I admit I might have egged this on somewhat, because after he called me some names and threw a few accusations my way that weren’t true, I threw a glass of water at him. It was then that he came at me.

After a few punches, he must have realized he’d gone too far. But being in defensive mode, the second he unpinned me, I threw a few good punches back at him. My left arm around the elbow and my upper right thigh is now throbbing because of all this.

I don’t need this. I don’t need any of this. He’d been trying for an argument/fight the last several days, and I’d done good to resist, but he just wouldn’t let me tonight. He was bound and determined to get what he wanted.

I’ve let a lot of things slide this last year, but I can’t let this. I can’t just pretend that what happened didn’t happen. I don’t want to stay someplace where I’m going to get beat up. It’s been a long time coming, but I know I don’t need to live here any longer. If I could, I’d have moved out months (really years) ago, but as I said, money is tight. And so I’m not sure how or what I’m going to do, but all I know is I don’t want to stay in this situation any longer.

Please just pray for me. There’s just been so much crap going on, and I’m just feeling so overwhelmed. I’m angry and sad all the time. I’m worried, frustrated, lonely… it just seems like nothing is going right. And I just honestly don’t know how much more I can take.