Undue Restraining Order

Location: South Dakota

I was recently served a protection order from my father's girlfriend. I believe my father would qualify as a vulnerable adult if he would see a psychiatrist or neurologist. He is around 50 years old. To make a long story short, his counselor started sleeping with him while he was in a behavioral health treatment center in Ohio (while he was engaged to my step-mom of 10 years) and has exploited his finances and isolated him from his family since. Her license was revoked in Ohio because of this so she moved to SD with my father. This came to a head this last August when she started threatening him that she would be moving back to Ohio if he continued his relationship with me. We are the same age and look very similar. This led to me texting/calling both of them a lot from the August-January timeframe, as I was worried about a possible relapse or domestic violence situation while they ignored my calls. However, his girlfriend used this as evidence of stalking against me, and the protection order was granted for 5 years. I do not even live in the same state as them.

The judge seemed like he didn't want to grant it, explaining to my father and his girlfriend about 3 times that this is serious and I would no longer be able to reliably contact my father since they live together. I'm no longer interested in looking out for my dad if he can't do the same thing for me obviously, but I do not want this appearing on background checks as it affects my professional life. I work in medical laboratory science and handle sensitive patient information all day every day. I have absolutely no violent or criminal history prior to this. I don't think I represented myself well in court because I was nervous and emotional. It was the first time I had heard my dad's voice in 6 months so it was hard to stop crying.

I understand there is an appeal process through the supreme Court but that it's moreso used for when the law was misapplied. I'm not sure it was though because I did text and call a lot, even using TextNow to change my number and ask her to get coffee and talk everything out (at my father's request).

I feel like I have been manipulated and abused in this situation by someone who is manipulating my father. Any advice? My (ex) step-mom and I have discussed suing the treatment center in Ohio for emotional damages, but I'm not sure that would help my situation.