'I was raised in a patriarchal cult. At 25, I escaped.'

Cait West spent a lot of time at home growing up. She was home-schooled and wasn't allowed out. She didn't have boyfriends or hang out with friends. She wasn't allowed to.

On the surface, this isn't particularly remarkable. After all, some parents are strict. But for Cait, it was much more than that. 

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Cait was a 'stay-at-home-daughter'. But that didn't just mean staying home as a child. For Cait, who was raised in an extreme religious community founded on patriarchy, being a stay-at-home-daughter meant staying home beyond adulthood. 

"We often think of cults, as (having) one leader, and then people who follow that leader inside of Christian patriarchy," Cait told Mamamia's No Filter podcast. 

Watch: Inside The Cult-like Doomsday Church. Article continues after the video. 

But within this movement, the fathers of each family are the cult leaders, broadly guided by official church leaders. 

The grassroots movement spread through small publications at first. When Cait was a child, audio tapes and magazines were widely circulated, including a publication called Patriarch Magazine, that her father got his hands on. 

"(There's) this perception that it's fringe, but really it's very popular, and I saw it spread a lot through the homeschooling community," says Cait. 

Cait's family were originally part of the Presbyterian Church of America. 

"Which surprises a lot of people, because people think that Presbyterians aren't fundamentalists, but there is a branch of Presbyterians who are, and my family is very reformed, very Calvinistic, built that belief system that God foreordained everything, and you're either predestined for heaven or hell. 

"As I became a teenager, we joined a new orthodox Presbyterian Church in Colorado, and that denomination is very similar to the PCA, but our pastor was very much a leader in both the homeschooling movement and the Christian patriarchy movement."

"Boys have a sexual drive that they can't help."

The movement believes that girls need to keep themselves sexually pure before marriage. Boys, however, have a sexual drive that they can't help. 

"In the world I grew up in, I took it a step further to be enforced by fathers and to go even beyond sexual purity to emotional purity," says Cait. 

"So you had to not sin with your feelings either.  You had to not give affection to anyone until you were betrothed to get married. 

"That's all part of modesty and covering up your body and not being too sexy, but not being too ugly either, because you want to make sure you get married."

Cait's upbringing was coloured by the lens of Christian patriarchy, underpinned racism and white supremacy.

"We learned that the Southern army, the Confederate Army, was the oppressed side of the Civil War, and that slavery wasn't as bad as you think. 

"I grew up thinking that Martin Luther King Jr was a bad person."

Cait wasn't taught how to drive or how to get a job or manage her own finances. That's because she wasn't being prepared for adulthood or independence — she was being prepared for domestic servitude to an arranged husband, and to the kids they might have, and to their church. 

So, when she turned 18, the prospect of being a stay-at-home-daughter seemed like a natural progression for her life. The expectation was that she would remain there until her dad - who was a courtship expert and practiced what's referred to as 'father led dating' – had found her a suitable husband. 

Some stay-at-home-daughters in this movement never leave home and serve their fathers into their 50s or 60s. 

"The idea was, if women are only to be wives and mothers, why would we send girls to college? If it's not going to help them with anything, and if they're just going to get influenced by the world?" Cait says. 

"Instead of being a stay-at-home wife or mother, you were a stay-at-home -daughter, practicing to be that wife and mother one day. 

"We were supposed to serve our fathers, and learn how to take care of him, kind of like a wife would. So I would make my dad coffee, I would iron his clothes, I would help him with his business."

"We don't date, we practice courtship."

In Christian patriarchy, rather than date, young people practice courtship. Cait's father's version of courtship was strict, ensuring there was never any alone time between the couple involved. 

"You always had to have a chaperone, no feelings. You weren't allowed to talk about a lot of things. Anything that would build an affectionate bond, was off limits. 

"So it was very much talking about theology and really basic small talk, so not really getting to know the other person. And you would do this for a few months, and then your father would decide if you were allowed to get married or betrothed."

Once betrothed, the woman would sign a covenant to commit to the marriage, and once the marriage took place, the father would "transfer his headship" over to the husband. 

It sounds extreme, and it is. But because of the years of isolation, indoctrination and limited access to information, Cait didn't know there were other options.

"I didn't have access to the internet by myself, even when I was 18, and I didn't have a driver's license at that point. I didn't have access to my birth certificate or social security card."

Eventually, Cait's family moved to Hawaii, and her isolation intensified. 

"I spent a lot of time by myself, reading, feeling sad. I didn't understand why I was so depressed, if I was following God's way, but I was really depressed."

Cait's father started a church community of like-minded people from around the area – including a man named Will. 

"He's got blue eyes and curly brown hair, and I'm like, 'Oh, well, God brought me the husband'.

"And he was really funny, and I loved being around him. He had all this energy, and he loved telling stories. And I quickly, you know, really felt drawn to him."

Will requested a courtship from Cait's Dad who said yes, initially. But then, suspecting pre-marital feelings, he abruptly cut it off. 

"I was really struggling with my mental health… and I started sneaking my parents' alcohol, and feeling very suicidal, and the way my dad was treating me and talking to me, especially after that courtship, it just escalated."

And then Cait received a laptop, and that's when things started to change. 

"I don't remember the words I typed in there. I must have typed in how I was feeling or the way my dad was treating me, but I came across this article about different types of abuse, and I had only ever heard that word in reference to physical abuse."

It was this discovery that triggered her to develop a plan to put aside some money for a potential future escape. 

By the time she was 24, the prospect of leaving seemed more real than ever, and then she met David. 

"I had made this vow to myself that I will never let my dad prevent me from having a loving relationship again. I started feeling these things about David, and I wanted to follow my heart and not listen to all those authorities telling me how to behave."

Like with Will, Cait's father agreed to a courtship, but rescinded the following week. 

"In some ways, having this relationship gave me the emotional support I needed to have the confidence to leave," says Cait. 

"He went through all of that with me. He confronted my dad and stood up for me and was not okay with the abuse, and that gave me courage."

"I had to make all these choices myself."

Cait and David moved to his home town of Michigan, staying with family until they felt settled. 

Suddenly, Cait was free – something she hadn't experienced before. 

"I didn't have any rules. I didn't have anybody telling me what to do. My husband's very much not a patriarch. He's not like somebody who's going to tell you what to do. We were very much a partnership.

"I had to make all these choices for myself, which is very overwhelming when you're not used to that."

Cait was finally in a safe place, and that allowed her to finally feel all the things she'd pushed away in order to survive. 

"When you're in survival mode, you have adrenaline, you have all these hormones that are helping you get through it, and then when you no longer have to be in that situation, you can release all of that, and you feel it all, and that's when a lot of the PTSD came."

Cait found peace watching cult documentaries and has written a book about her experiences, titled, Rift.

Cait has written a memoir about her experiences. Image: Instagram/@caitwestwrites

She's seen her father a couple of times, and remains in contact with her mother. She knows she's one of the lucky ones. 

"I know so many stay at home daughters, and I've seen so many ways they've lived out their lives. 

"Some of them have never gotten married. Some of them got married and then divorced. Some of them are married and still in the movement. Some are married and love the movement.

"A lot of abuse has happened, and that is really hard to stomach, because our parents set us up for that. It's hard to see my friends who've been in those marriages and knowing that happened to them. 

"I do feel like I escaped some of the worst parts of what could have happened. There's never a way to compare trauma, but I do feel… grateful for where I am today."

Feature image: Instagram/@caitwestwrites