Will I regret sharing too much in a protection order?
My husband and I are separated, living apart, and getting divorced. He has not been physically violent since he moved out last fall, but continues to harass me on/off depending on his mood that day, calling repeatedly, sending 50 rapid-fire texts in a row, saying he is moving back in and law enforcement told him he has every right, I'm going to lose custody, etc., etc., etc.
We have a child with special needs and complex medical issues, so I haven't been able to avoid contact with him, and it's way past the point that I should've filed a harassment protection order.
I've had a hard time with this for multiple reasons— worried about financial retaliation, but also it's a hard step for me to put down the details of abuse and make it officially known.
I have been told I have more than enough significant and recent records of harassment to include for the order to be granted, and I've also been advised to include incidents of physical abuse, even if I'm not filing for an OFP. I've gone through my phone, matched up the injuries with my notes, texts, diary app entries, etc. to remember when certain things happened, and that was tough, but I got it done.
However, yesterday I looked at a mood tracking app I used around that time, and was surprised to see how much I added additional info about the mood I was recording. It was eye-opening to see the pattern of how it all revolved around his erratic temperament and how I was only happy when he was, and I obsessed over trying to keep him happy.
Some of the things I wrote were so shocking that I was gasping as I read them… realizing I'd either blocked the incidents out to cope, or I just straight up forgot because he was terrible to me so often.
A couple of the things he did were so humiliating that I noted that I would never tell anyone out of embarrassment (example: he hit me in the face with our child’s fully soaked diaper).
In my state, the details in a protection order are not public unless you go to the court and use their little special computer, and search records that way. I have no reason to believe anyone would do this, and if they did, I don't think it would be to shame me. I just can't shake the feeling that I would regret adding some of the humiliating incidents because they COULD be found if for some reason the media had an interest in either him or me one day (not likely, I know- but it's like when they dig up a victim’s Venmo transactions and put that in the news)
Sorry this is long, but what do you guys think? Put the worst of it all on record to be safe, in case it comes up in the divorce like “well, you didn’t mention it in the protection order, so did it really happen?”, or is it unnecessary?