Daddy's Special Little Girl

By Jody Lynn Enders

“Is it possible to describe the confusion and shame I felt every time daddy came to my bedroom and used me to fulfill his sexual perversion? Is it possible to describe the fear that consumed me when I thought I was pregnant with my dad’s baby?” Daddy’s Special Little Girl is a heart-on-your-sleeve memoir about growing up in an abusive home with five siblings, an alcoholic father, and a courageous mother—about desperate attempts to cope with unbearable pain, about surviving the betrayal and devastation of incest and the rejection of divorce, about God’s forgiveness and healing. The author bares her soul as she takes you on an inconceivable journey that includes graphic scenes of her abuse, honest exposure of her own sin, paralyzing anguish and sorrow she endures, and raw emotions as she accepts her dad’s prison sentence and death. You will weep as you read about the heartbreaking encounters and effects of the hideous crime of incest. You will rejoice as you experience the forgiveness, love, and support this family had for their dad and each other.
In Daddy’s Special Little Girl, Jody reveals the lingering devastation of a family crime no one wants to talk about. Her transparency is disarming, her case compelling, and her focus on healing. For the thousands who have experienced the pain of incest, the book points the way to help. For those who would like to believe that “these things don’t happen in Christian homes,” Daddy’s Special Little Girl will explode the myth.
—Gary D. Chapman, Ph.D
Author of The Five Love Languages

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781098035419

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Daddy's Special Little Girl

Jody Lynn Enders

ISBN 978-1-0980-3540-2 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-0980-3541-9 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Jody Lynn Enders

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

My Passion: Why Every Act of Child Sexual Abuse Should Be Educating Us All

Introduction

The Beginning

My First Home

Memories

Oral Sex with Daddy

Sunday School and Rape

Sickness, Death, and Sexual Abuse

Music, Music, Music

Bloody Beatings

The Horror and Shame of Rape

Pregnant with Dad's Baby

More Memories

Moving Next Door

A Near-Tragic Boating Accident

Youth Camp and My First Kiss

Getting Engaged and Escaping to College

A Tiny New Life and Marriage

The Adulterous Affair

Finding Happiness

The Ugly Secret is Exposed

The Arrest

Probation and the Violent Fight

Grief and Healing

Forgiveness and Family

The Prosecution and Letters From Prison

The End, or Perhaps, the Beginning

The Future

Endorsements

General Information and Resources

National Child Victimization Information

Child Abuse Facts and Information

Bibliography

About the Author

William Douglas Pickett

Willy

3/12/04–11/5/15

Eleven years old at time of passing

Willy's Tribute

This book is dedicated in part to Jody's grandson, William. William (Willy) was born with a terminal brain disorder called lissencephaly.

If you think of the impact that one life can have on this world, you might think in terms of time. How much can you do within the set number of years you have here on Earth? Willy only had eleven years to make his impact and make an impact he did!

When it was clear that he was going to live longer than two years, his family decided to go about the business of living. Throughout his eleven years on Earth, Willy, guided by his parents, advocated for his peers in several significant ways. His first act of advocacy was testifying with his mom (really, he just had to sit there and look adorable), in a State of Michigan Congressional Hearing with regards to funding decreases in healthcare designed for children with severe, life-limiting illnesses.

After testing the political waters on a state level, Willy participated in the 2015 National Certified Rehab Technology Leadership and Advocacy Conference. The group he was with made 220 congressional visits in three days, and it was whirlwind and poignant. Willy visited several Congressional Representatives and their staff to show them the face of people who desperately rely on specialized rehab technology to live.

Perhaps Willy's most significant legacy will be that of his work with pediatric do-not-resuscitate orders (DNR). Willy was born with lissencephaly, which is considered a terminal diagnosis. In the early years, seizures and respiratory issues were his major culprits. The combination of access to fantastic healthcare, faith, wonderfully supportive school staff, good parenting, and a little luck, he always healed up and bounced back. His cycles of sickness and health just became a part of the normal family routine.

However, in 2013, his health had declined to the extent that every time he was sick, he healed with continued regression. He was still ‘healthy' and going to school, but his quality of life was slowly diminishing. It was then that Willy's parents decided to focus on quality instead of quantity of life. Part of these refocused efforts included a DNR.

The process of writing Willy's DNR order was painful, but his parents didn't expect problems with his school district. However, there was no continuity within Michigan school districts as to the policies surrounding pediatric DNR orders. Thus began a five-year process of attempting to change the laws surrounding this issue.

In the meantime, Willy was diagnosed with pneumonia right around Halloween in 2015. True to his DNR, he was given antibiotics to try to fight the infection, but his body was tired and did not respond. Willy passed away on 11/5/2015 at home in his mother's arms.

After Willy passed, his mother continued to push the DNR legislation. Bills to support DNR's in the school setting passed unanimously in the Michigan Senate in 2018, but the Lame Duck session didn't support enough time to get the bills passed through the House. Willy's mom persevered though and along with a great team of professionals; the bills went back through the legislative process in 2020. Michigan House Bills 5417, 5418, and 5419 were signed into law by Governor Gretchen Whitmer in January of 2021. These laws require school staff to honor student DNR's while providing immunity by amending the State of Michigan School Code, they updated the state's Do Not Resuscitate Act, and allow for guardians to be able to make the same end of life decisions as biological parents.

The impact that his life had will continue to have ripple effects for decades to come as we forge ahead with the DNR legislation. The lesson his life taught everyone is that every life, no matter how long or what challenges are involved, has meaning.

Our precious Willy

Grandma Jody and Willy

Acknowledgments

I am a strong woman because a strong woman raised me. I give honor and praise to my mother, Barbara, for her faith, grace, sense of humor, integrity, courage, and unconditional love.

Dee—Christian friend who told me that God has appointed you as one of His generals to help set the children free who are crying out in the darkness.

Alice Peppler—friend and editor.

Michelle Combs, PA-C—friend and physician's assistant.

Gary D. Chapman, Ph.D.—author of The Five Love Languages.

Douglas A. Drossman, MD—retired professor of medicine and psychiatry, UNC School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Rev. Alan D. Wright—author of Childlike Heart.

Phil Kelley Jr.—Salem Printing, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Laura Markland—Sherebiah Photography, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Betty Smith—Walnut Cove Public Library, Walnut Cove, North Carolina

My Passion: Why Every Act of Child Sexual Abuse Should Be Educating Us All

Addendum by Pamela J Pine for inclusion in Daddy's Special Little Girl by Jody Lynn Enders, 2021

Hundreds of girls practicing for the Olympics over the last 20 years were sexually abused by their assumed-to-be trusted coach. In the early 2000s, this story broke: priests in the Catholic Church were sexually abusing children. The Boy Scouts of America, in the face of a new wave of abuse allegations in 2019, filed for bankruptcy. So many, many more are abused by mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, and others. Some children told when or shortly after they were abused. Nothing was done. By anyone. The children grew up. They told, some of them for another time. Now, after keeping the secret for decades in some instances because they were groomed and shamed and manipulated into doing that, something is sometimes done, by some, in some places – but definitively not in all. Some people are now saying: anyone dealing even remotely with children need to be trained; parents need to be educated; children need to be spoken to.

In the year 2000, I got something across my computer screen from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): a call for proposals for research on interpersonal violence, and I started reading the information under child sexual abuse (CSA). I knew nothing at the time: not what CSA really is, how it effects kids and adolescents and the adults they become, not how often it happens, not who the likely perpetrators are. I kept reading. I asked my public health colleagues if they ever had a course or anything that discussed this issue. No. Nothing. Did they know…? No, they did not. Kids should be safe, grow up happy, and able to make a fulfilled life.

More than one in four girls and at least one in six boys in the United States is sexually abused by the time they are 18 years old (CDC, 2014). This translates into more than 42 million adult survivors in the U.S. alone. At least 90 percent of the time, the children who are sexually abused are abused by someone who they know and who has regular access to them: coaches, yes, and teachers, clinicians, neighbors, and family members. Many children are abused by family members: fathers and stepfathers, mothers and stepmothers, uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters… [From research conducted, Darkness to Light reported that], the younger the victim, the more likely it is that the abuser is a family member. Of those molesting a child under six, 50 percent were family members. Family members also accounted for 23 percent of those abusing children ages 12 to 17" (Darkness to Light, 2014). These numbers are similar in many places in the world—and in some places, they are worse.

CSA constitutes a broad range of behaviors and occurs in epidemic proportions across the globe resulting in a host of poor outcomes for children, the adults they become, and society at large. CSA severely affects a broad spectrum of mental and physical health outcomes, life expectancy, and the monetary cost to nations. It is a part of a spectrum of other adverse childhood experiences or ACEs (e.g., physical and psychological abuse, neglect, parent incarcerated, parental substance abuse (see the work of Fellitti and Alda and www.ACEsTooHigh.com) that are also extremely damaging as well as multiplicative in terms of negative impact. In comparison to the problem, little is being done—but needs to be, could be, and must be.

Passion got me, and dedication sustained me. I started an organization to comprehensively address CSA. That was 20 years ago. I and my colleagues have done a lot, in many places, including parts of Africa, throughout the EU (with Cyprus conducting major, comprehensive programming), in Oceania (with comprehensive programming), in the UK, and the U.S. More needs to be done. It has never been easy—in fact, it's been difficult…to get people to pay attention, to get funders to support the work, to make headway.

When an anonymous Joe from one state travels to another state and kidnaps and rapes a child, well, many people say: execute him, castrate him, throw him in prison for the rest of his life. However, when it is dad, and dad happens to be an important community member, and certainly saying something will bring real discomfort, well, maybe the child is just lying. Or maybe we need to work on unifying the family. Or maybe… And, the fact is, that different solutions do need to be found for each situation.

But, overall, we just don't want to talk about daddy—or mommy. Especially if they are good people We must.

CSA causes grave physical, psychological, developmental, and neurological short—and long-term harm to children and the adults they become. It results in a large spectrum of psychological and neurological and physical damage. It costs the nation billions each year in clean up (therapy, social services, police, clinicians, legal and court costs). And decades of personal, familial, monetary, and societal costs for adult survivors and those around them.

We have a national problem, and the world has a global problem. If the numbers of any disease were as high as the numbers of CSA, we would dedicate resources to addressing the epidemic and research how to prevent it as a nation. Like we've done with breast cancer, like we've done with HIV, like we have done with obesity.

Children do not have a voice or the power to act preventively or in their own defense. We need to speak for them and act for them. Communities need training in how to talk about CSA, how to report CSA, and how to keep children safe during disclosures of CSA.

We need to enact laws for their safety. We need to educate and train all those who have access to and work with children: fathers, mothers, other guardians, nannies, teachers, coaches, nurses, doctors, other clinicians, police, social workers, clergy, court-related professionals, and volunteers.

Yes, we should continue the conversations around #metoo, #metooCSA, #churchtoo, etc. AND, we need also need a national comprehensive movement of action to prevent, treat, and mitigate CSA.

Findings from the 2017 World Health Organization's (WHO) Clinical Guideline for Responding to Children and Adolescents Who Have Been Sexually Abused (WHO, 2017) states that sexual abuse, including sexual assault or rape, of children and adolescents is a major global public health problem [emphasis ours], a violation of human rights, and has many health consequences in the short and long term (p.1).

Various global studies were used in the WHO Guidelines to determine the number of cases of child sexual abuse. When medical authorities were informed, they underlined a need to (i) work with communities to improve timely care seeking by survivors of abuse, (ii) raise awareness of health-care providers about child sexual abuse and its health consequences and how to recognize it; (iii) improve the response by health care providers towards those children and adolescents who seek services, and (iv) improve coordination and timely referrals between other services or authorities where children and adolescents who are sexually abused are identified or taken to health services (p.8).

Stop the Silence®: Stop Child Sexual Abuse, Inc. (https://www.ivatcenters.org/stop-the-silence), the organization I began, is a two-decade-old, award-winning, international child sexual abuse prevention and mitigation program that also now addresses other adverse childhood experiences. As of 2021, it is a Department of the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, www.ivatcenters.org, an organization based in San Diego, CA, while the Stop the Silence® Department continues to have its presence just outside of Washington, D.C. We provide comprehensive, evidence-based, innovative, and creative programming to prevent, treat, and mitigate child sexual abuse. Its staff and associates are experts in the field of CSA and childhood trauma. Stop the Silence®'s focus is on awareness-raising, policy development, education, and training a host of service providers and the public toward creating a critical mass. I have developed these areas of intervention, including an innovative online training for various service providers, into a comprehensive model for prevention and mitigation of CSA. I see our role as helping to catalyze change, providing information and skills to those in communities, states, and countries so that others are able to move programming strategically and systematically forward, thereby providing a sustainable base and momentum.

I cried when making my early presentations about CSA and I needed to turn around to collect myself for a moment—all I had to think of was my own kids when describing what went on, and then that thought turned into everyone's kids. When our first public service announcements were on NPR to educate the public and advertise about the first Race to Stop the Silence® (annual of 10, from 2004-2013), the well-known NPR staff person who read the PSA literally stumbled over the words (the name of the organization did the trick in forcing others to say the then-taboo phrase child sexual abuse). Early on, when introducing myself and my organization in calls to companies to garner support, those at the other end of the line, hearing the name of the organization, would literally lower their voices as if someone could hear me (or their minds). It has changed: on the phone with Verizon the other day, I was asked what Stop the Silence® was and my short description resulted in a Good for you! Wonderful that you are doing what you are! Things have changed. Again: more needs to be done.

As time passed, I designed Stop the Silence®'s Comprehensive Child Sexual Abuse Training, Prevention, Mitigation, and Care Model, which seeks to promote and protect the physical and emotional safety of the child and adolescent by working with others to provide key information to policymakers and stakeholders, non-offending caregivers, educators, healthcare providers, law enforcement officials, and other societal leaders, as well as community professionals and members of the public at large so that they are able to consider all potential harms and take or choose actions that will minimize the negative consequences on the child or adolescent. In 2018, Stop the Silence® entered into a partnership with an organization in New Zealand, Trust MYRIVR, using new, innovative technology available through them, to gather and provide information to the public and coordinate access to services.

An international survey done in New Zealand found that one in four New Zealand girls is sexually abused before the age of 15, the highest rate of any country examined (www.newzealandchildabuse.com).

The MYRIVR App is New Zealand's largest in-app directory of health and social services. Within five years of existence, the App has connected 5,500 unique users to 9,000 service providers and 30,000 professionals, totaling 62.4 million community service touch points. MYRIVR makes access to health and social services easy for everyday Kiwis, simply by putting access to services in the palm of one's hand. With so many services in the community, MYRIVR simplifies their visibility and accessibility to make it easier for communities to reach out for help. In simple terms, if the community cannot see you (provider), it cannot use you.

The MYRIVR Self-Referral App tracks referral status in real-time and gives both the consumer and service provider visibility of performance against agreed deliveries and outcomes. MYRIVR brings the Knowledge Exchange Hub of Massey University into the partnership. Bridging traditional humanities/social science and science practices and modes of thought, the Knowledge Exchange Hub brings together a dedicated, interdisciplinary team of researchers to identify and work on critical political, ethical, and intellectual issues that face New Zealand and the world today. They will analyze and present the data for this project. The partnership will make a fundamental change in the current circumstances regarding CSA in New Zealand—and allow us to carry the results to other countries and programs.

With Passion… The collaborative partnership between Stop the Silence® and MYRIVR, and now a 15-member worldwide coalition, is helping to make a fundamental change in the current circumstances regarding CSA and ACEs in New Zealand and around the world. I chalk at least a good part of our progress and success to passion, mine, and others'. With Passion and hard work, we can change the world: for the kids, for their adult selves…for us all.

Contact information and for reproduction requests:

Pamela J. Pine, PhD, MPH, MPH, MAIA, CHES

Founder and Director, Stop the Silence®: A Department of the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma (IVAT)

https://www.ivatcenters.org/stop-the-silence

[e-mail]

Ward Schline, Social Media Outreach Manager, Stop the Silence®

www.facebook.com/stopcsa and www.facebook.com/groups/nikkilove

[e-mail]

© 2021 Pamela J Pine, My Passion all rights reserved; to reproduce, contact Pamela J. Pine, as above.

Introduction

We appeared to be the all-American Christian family—faithful church members who loved and supported each other. There were six darling, obedient children who were all musicians in the school band programs and the church choir and orchestra. Our handsome father had a steady job, our petite mother baked cupcakes for school parties and sewed doll clothes, and our big dog stood guard.

My siblings and I practiced our musical instruments every day, read our Sunday school lessons each week, and did our homework and chores. We attended church on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening, memorized Bible verses, and learned moral standards from our mom. Always together, the endless whirlwind of family activities included church functions, birthday parties, PTA meetings, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, band concerts, music lessons, ball games, bike-riding, waterskiing, tobogganing, ice-skating, paper routes, numerous trips to the grocery store, and countless visits to the pediatrician.

Every house has a story to tell, and the big houses on Pipestone Road was no exception. Inside the walls lived a dysfunctional, sad family caused by the evil, demonic spirit of an abusive, controlling, alcoholic father. The sexual, physical, verbal, and emotional abuse that was inflicted on us created an environment of fear, low self-esteem, and rejection. Dad was a master of manipulation. He boasted about being in control of everyone and everything. He charmed everyone he met by literally drawing them into himself and then using them to fulfill his own desires without thinking about the consequences. His religious facade hid what was really going on in our home.

Yet we loved him.

With every possible form of procrastination, the conviction and intensity to write my story became greater.

I will bless the Lord who counsels me; he gives me wisdom in the night. He tells me what to do. I am always thinking of the Lord; and because he is so near, I never need to stumble or fall (Psalms 16:7–8).

There were many