How to deal with ex that I don’t feel safe with

Hi. This is my first post. I’m at a loss for how to manage my situation. My ex husband and I have been divorced since May of this year. We had a great And healthy relationship for 11 years but the last 2 years got turned upside down. There was mistrust coming from him, paranoia, anger, he started smoking cigarettes and drinking more than he used to. Became jealous and controlling and abusive. Once it started escalating to physical abuse I was out. We have 3 small kids together. I put a restraining order on him because I don’t feel safe around him but because we have kids I have to see him while we exchange them.

His personality flipped completely. He does strange things that he never did before. Like for example he one time he took some food items from my moms house when I moved in with her. Like he was trying to sneak out with them. This was about a year ago. Recently when he picked up our kids, one of them brought a phone with them that only works to get on YouTube and he took it and now won’t give it back to us.

He looks angry most of the time and gets hostile. Then other times he’s calm and even friendly. But then there’s the time our daughter forgot shoes in his car and he goes to get them and then throws it at my door like a child. I have so many more examples of the strange things he does and the weird way he thinks.

Point is that I knew this person for many years and he’s definitely changed. Problem is that he doesn’t see himself. He blames all his problems on me. I avoid conversation with him like the plague cuz it gets very confusing. Last night he came to my house acting like he wanted to see the kids but he wanted to talk to me instead. And all he said is that I have to talk to him and that we are affecting each other’s lives. He said that he thinks I’m talking $#%^ about him or that my family must be. Not sure why he feels that way. I get very nervous when he wants to talk because I don’t know how unstable he is. It scares me. I wish he would just talk to me about the kids and nothing else. I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing that will get me slapped in the face again or worse. He’s also recently sent me texts asking me to go to his house and was asking if I liked bondage. It’s so weird.

How do I manage this person when I have kids with him? I wish I could run away. I don’t want to prevent the kids from seeing their dad. If I request supervised visits he’ll get angrier than what he is. He doesn’t see something is not right with him.