Apr 25, 2004 By Jennifer Harr 5 min read

Pat woke up one morning to find an intruder in her home. The 48-year-old Fayette County woman was raped, the security that she knew in her day-to-day life was forever changed, and she was shaken.

The day of the attack was her granddaughter’s surprise birthday party, which made things even more difficult. She thought about not going, about calling her daughter then and telling her what happened, but something stopped her.

“It would have given the person who broke into my home too much power,” she said.

Surprisingly, Pat said, the day was a good one. She went to the party, watched the others there with their families, and left the harrowing events of her morning behind her for the time being.

“I spent what could have been one of the worst days of my life with some of the most wonderful people,” she said.

And when she sat down to watch the 11 p.m. news with her two daughters, knowing there would be a report of the break-in, she looked at them and told them what she said was the most difficult thing ever: “That was me.”

They had a “horrible” reaction, Pat said. But even the same day as the attack, she said, her attitude was fixed toward the positive.

“I told them, ‘I’m alive. I’m OK.’ And we went from there.”

A rape victim and survivor, Pat, who asked only to be identified by her first name, spoke to a group gathered on the Fayette County Courthouse steps Friday about her experience. She repeatedly told those gathered, including many teens from Laurel Highlands and Geibel high schools, that life poses choices, and she advised them to look for that positive as she did after her rape.

“What happens after (an assault) means a lot. … I chose not to be a victim,” she said.

Pat’s speech came as part of the third annual “Are You Man Enough” rally, sponsored by Children and Youth Services and the Crime Victims’ Center.

The teens that joined the rally carried flags, 65 with teddy bears to represent the substantiated claims of child abuse in the county and 64 with ribbons for the adolescent victims of sexual assault. A lone black flag was held by Laura Heneks, daughter of child abuse prosecutor Jack R. Heneks Jr., to represent one fatality in the county due to child abuse and neglect.

And while several others from social service agencies, the district attorney’s office and public officials spoke, the most rapt attention was paid to Pat, who in a strong voice, with steeled shoulders, told of her road to becoming a survivor with no apologies.

With a teen-age audience and statistics that suggest as many as one in six women will be sexually assaulted, Pat urged the group gathered to feel no shame for things done to them without their permission.

“I did not choose to do this. The person who chose to do it should be ashamed.”

Although Pat said she has come out of the experience channeling victimization into survivorship, she said some lingering things keep the experience close. Noises, for example, bother her. And she has become more cautious, even jaded, as a result of the rape.

But the one thing that bothers her the most since the rape, said Pat, is that her seven grandchildren who used to stay the night at her house at different times over the summer no longer come because their fathers doubt the safety of her home. That long-reaching effect, Pat said, is not one the man who broke into her home and raped her thought about.

“With everything you do, you touch so many more lives than just that one life,” she said, urging the teens present to recognize that fact.

While Pat received a lot of support from friends, neighbors and family, she had two unexpected comments in the wake of the rape that really bothered her. One was from a woman who suggested she made up the incident to get attention for herself. The other was from a man at a bar who suggested she might have asked for it.

Even in that situation, however, Pat empowered herself by inviting the man to her home, confronting him about the hurtful comment, then shaking his hand and telling him she never wanted to see him again. Those comments – the kind made without the facts or without thinking – are the ones Pat urged the teens present to rethink before making.

Over the time since the attack, Pat said, she hasn’t changed her philosophy of deriving positive empowerment of her victimization. On the first anniversary of the attack, she spent the day at the shooting range, learning how to use a gun for the first time. “Don’t give up. Be persistent, but not radical. Be patient, and don’t dwell on the assault,” she said.