S5:E11 - Escaping Christian Patriarchy with Cait West

Uncertain

Cait West is a writer and editor based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her work has been published in The Revealer, Religion Dispatches, Fourth Genre, and Hawai`i Pacific Review, among others. As an advocate and a survivor of the Christian patriarchy movement, she serves on the editorial board for Tears of Eden, a nonprofit providing resources for survivors of spiritual abuse.

In Cait’s memoir Rift, she tells a harrowing story of chaos and control hidden beneath the facade of a happy family. Weaving together lyrical meditations on the geology of the places her family lived with her story of spiritual and emotional manipulation as a stay-at-home daughter, Cait creates a stirring portrait of one young woman’s growing awareness that she is experiencing abuse. With the ground shifting beneath her feet, Cait mustered the courage to break free from all she’d ever known and choose a future of her own making.

Uncertain is a podcast of Tears of Eden, a community and resource for those in the aftermath of Spiritual Abuse. If you’re enjoying this podcast, please take a moment to like, subscribe, or leave a review on your favorite podcasting listening apparatus.

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Transcript is unedited for typos and misspellings:

I am so excited about today's guest. Kate West has a very special place in my heart. We met over the internet in the very early days of Tears of Eden, in the early days of the podcast Uncertain. She was the first person that I encountered outside of my family who'd Similar to the way that I had, who was talking about it openly in public, online, we have been friends and colleagues ever since then.

Her book is about that experience of growing up in the Christian patriarchy movement in the stay at home daughter movement. We'll talk a little bit about the dynamics of that. podcast before. So I'm going to link to some of those episodes in the show notes. She's also a member of Tears of Eden's editorial board.

and is responsible for a lot of the content that is on the Tears of [00:01:00] Yin blog, the website. Super grateful for her. Very grateful for her story. And here is my interview with Kate West.

katherine: Well, hello, Kate. Hello. How are you? I'm doing all right it is good to see you.

Cait: You too. And I think we both have sunny days. It seems like you have some sunshine in your room.

katherine: Yes. It's going to be, it's going to be a relatively warmer weekend. I think like 60s ish. How's weather where you are?

Cait: Yeah, I think it might get up to 60 today. And I want to, I want to get outside and start. Scraping around in the dirt and get my garden started, but we'll

katherine: see. Speaking of dirt, your book.

Cait: What a segue.

katherine: Your book is called Rift, and you have a metaphor throughout your book about geology. And the earth, you talk a lot about like the earth [00:02:00] and I'm not even going to try to like get into scientific things.

So talk to me about your book, which is the full title is rifts, a memoir of breaking away from Christian patriarchy. You have been on the podcast a couple of times before, so I'm going to link to some of those episodes in the show notes. But talk to me about the, the theme of this book and that metaphor, that geological earth metaphor that you use here.

Cait: If you've listened to other interviews, the other interviews, you'll know I grew up similar to you, like, as a stay at home daughter, Christian patriarchy movement, quiverful. And this book is a story of me growing up in that and not understanding the world I was living in until it started going wrong and how I figured out how to leave and my life afterwards.

And the idea of rifting comes from [00:03:00] this idea in, Well, there's this interesting thing that happens in geology where the earth splits apart and something like continents can be caused by rifts. You might think of like, there's this big rift in Africa where you can see the rift valley. And where I live in Michigan, rift, a rift started the great lakes.

That's, we're surrounded by water in Michigan. And that's, that's partly why I talk about rifting is because I'm surrounded by water and I'm fascinated by this idea of, Breaking away because when I left patriarchy, I, I wanted to start over, start with a clean slate and never have to think about my past again.

And so I wanted to break away, right? But, but I couldn't escape who I am and where I came from. No matter what I tried, it, it kept coming back. And I feel like that trauma is stored in your body and you just can't. Move on without healing from that. So the idea of a rift is both sides of it [00:04:00] are the same materials, you know, the same ground, but over time they change.

in separate ways. So I've, I've moved on from the Christian patriarchy movement. There's still part of me that is because of what happened to me, but I'm changing now and I'm separated from it in a way that allows me to grow. So that's just like a bigger metaphor I'm using throughout the book. It helps me to think bigger picture instead of focusing in on my own story all the time.

It's, it's kind of like a grounding practice.

katherine: Oh, for sure. And it's a perfect metaphor too, because the new space or the new geological formation, Comes from the old and it's still the same earth, but it's a, it's completely new thing. And it's perfect. And I've been thinking about that so much lately, because I think we all have this leaning of [00:05:00] like, of wanting to have a before and an after, and like, I went through this, but then I healed and now I'm better.

And here I am. And this, the reality is. We are impacted forever. Especially something as traumatic as what you went through as what I went through impacted our very identities impacted our bodies. We're never going to not have lived that story, but this. new formation and this new life that we create on the other side of it is, is also possible.

So it's not like it has to control the narrative of at all. That's perfect. I love it. I love it. I love it as a metaphor. Yeah. So just in case folks are not familiar with the Christian patriarchy. Would you mind talking about some of the key factors and, and feel free [00:06:00] to just share like how that showed up in your family as well.

Cait: Sure. I try to explain this in the beginning of the book because it's, I feel like, I relate to a lot of cult documentaries and cult vocabulary, but the Christian patriarchy movement isn't one singular church. It's this bigger movement. And there are churches within that, but they're across different denominations.

And what's really happening is each family is a cult. I know you've talked about that too, where the fathers are the cult leaders and. The mothers, the wives and the mothers are supposed to obey their husbands and all things and then the children under underneath that so It's this hierarchy But it's based on this literal interpretation of of the Bible at least a cherry picked version of that I would say a

katherine: version of the a version

Cait: And it's this it's really problematic [00:07:00] Belief system where men are on the top, women are beneath them and women essentially don't have any agency in this system.

And so you see it in a lot of churches. Some churches will actually say they're patriarchal and they're proud of it, but then other churches will be more subtle about it. And I consider something like complementarianism to be. a version of patriarchy. It's just more, more subtle, something like soft patriarchy.

So the bigger movement, I think we grew up like in the nineties where This was a big part of the homeschooling movement, quiverful ideology, having as many children as you can. So it's all tied together, I think, with that, and it's connected to evangelicalism. So it's very complicated. And people are still living this way, so

katherine: Yes, they are.

A lot of

Cait: churches who are patriarchal.

katherine: And I think the connection between the [00:08:00] extreme version of patriarchy that we grew up with and the evangelical version of patriarchy, I think a lot of folks don't want to acknowledge the connection. And, and I just, I mean, I worked in the evangelical church for almost a decade and they were so proud of how well they cared for women.

And the same things existed, they were just smiling more and weren't as overt about you're supposed to serve men. But, but that mentality was still embedded into it. And I, I sometimes feel like it can be more damaging when it's that subtle, because You're so confused and you're constantly being gaslit.

Yeah. And, and then you can't address it because they're constantly like, you know, but we do , right? We do really, we really care about [00:09:00] women. Yeah. And I think that the argument in the Christian Patriarchy movie is the same thing about caring about women because it's like, this is what's best for you. Like this is God's best.

For you, and we're doing this because this is God's best. Talk about how that dynamic showed up for you of, and just the, so it's your father giving you these rules. What is that extra layer that's added when he's doing it in God's name?

Cait: Right. There's secular patriarchy, right?

And so religious patriarchy takes that idea of men are in charge, men should be the leaders men should benefit from the way society is built, and it adds that level of divine blessing. It's almost like, Back in the day when kings said they were divinely appointed to be kings. So it's your father saying he's divinely appointed to be [00:10:00] the authoritarian leader in your life.

And, If for me, that meant if I disobeyed my dad, it was disobeying God, which meant I deserved eternal punishment in hell. So it's very fear based mentality, but when you believe that you take it very seriously. And so I think that's why it falls under spiritual abuse because you're, they're using God and this threat of, of divine punishment and, and to build, to hold up men with power.

In your life. And so there's, they're talking like they're talking for God, basically, and you're supposed to obey them no matter what. But when you realize that's not actually God's voice, it can be devastating to realize like it's all built on a lie.

katherine: it's a genius mechanism and every cult leader has used it because it works like [00:11:00] to just be able to say like, Oh, it's not me saying this.

Yeah. This is, this is the Lord. I'm just, I'm just following what God, God wants me to do. And the cult leaders will do that. They'll like reflect back onto the deity. And that's what makes it a cult, in my opinion, because. They, they have set themselves up as this divine leader, but in this way that I am special and I am chosen by the Lord, you know, and, and you can't question it.

Cait: Right. And it's like, it's so violating for your, your spiritual life because growing up I really wanted to follow God. I wanted to, I, I was taught that God was loving and that I should. Church. You know, like I belonged and so I really was committed to that. So when the men in my life were using that [00:12:00] against me to keep me under control and to keep me from making choices about my life, especially as I became an adult, it, it was really disruptive to how I even viewed the world.

katherine: Yeah. Cause it's everything.

Cait: Yeah.

katherine: And, and. And I just think of like, how much our identity was rooted in our gender. And like, how, just when you discover gender is a theory. Wait a second. And human beings. We're really not, there's some, you know, normalized like biological differences, but in general, like there's, there's not a lot of difference.

And when you realize how deeply embedded this lie is, and yet it was so much a part of our identity, it's so disrupting. And I think [00:13:00] that that's something that a lot of people can't. Understand and we can we can experience validation on the other side of it of like, well, why did you believe that? Like, that's stupid.

That's dumb. Talk to me a little bit about that. And how do you experience that invalidation from folks once you got out of https: otter. ai Well, why did you stay? And cause you were 20, 26.

Cait: I was 25

katherine: when I left 25 when you left. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about some of the invalidation that you have experienced.

Cait: Well, I, I avoided talking about it at all for a long time. And I remember the first time I shared a little bit of my story with a coworker. She didn't seem to get it, and then later I heard her talking about me like I was Amish. She was telling somebody that I grew up Amish, and I was like, no, but I didn't correct her, because it's like, well, they're kind of the same thing, it's just they look a little bit different externally.

you know, I knew [00:14:00] right away that, My experience was not the norm and that people wouldn't get it. And so I avoided talking about it a lot and I'm very much a book learner and. You know, being homeschooled, I had to teach myself a lot. So I feel like I studied. Outside culture when I left and try to fit in as best I could.

And I remember another job I was working at a community college and I shared something with a coworker there and he was so confused, like, well, then why are you acting so normal? Like, are you like, why do you speak English? Yeah. Like so confused that I like. was a normal human being. And I was like, I don't know what you, what you want from me.

katherine: What do you want

Cait: from me? Yeah. Cause I think people have this idea that you grow up and you're just like an alien, you know, if you believe extreme, what other [00:15:00] people believe are extreme ideologies. But for us, it wasn't extreme. It was normal. And I just didn't have anything to compare it to. So that was just the way I grew up.

And I. Now that I've left, I don't know if there is like a normal way to grow up. I think people go through a lot of hard times. Yeah,

katherine: absolutely. And people

Cait: believe a lot of, to me, seem like they're strange beliefs. You know, I think a lot of people believe things. It's just a matter of like how committed you are to it and how willing you are to put relationships above your beliefs, which didn't happen in my family.

So

katherine: meaning that you're the beliefs came first,

Cait: right? Like doctrine was more important than people. And I think that's when you get into these cult like environments is when the beliefs are more important. The doctrine is more important. It doesn't matter who's being harmed, especially when you can say, Oh, this is love, even though you're being, I hate that because it's like, [00:16:00] You know, it, it messes with your head when you, when someone's telling you, they love you and this is love and I'm hitting you because I love you.

And then it's just abuse. You just don't have the word for that.

katherine: Yeah. And I think that that's helpful just for wider abuse situations is, this is getting more complex and stuff, but like. This is not presented to people as abuse, like, like nobody, like the leaders and our fathers are not coming at us like I'm here to abuse you.

They are, they are presenting it as love and doing what is right and doing what God wants you to do. And then. If we have any feeling of like, I don't like this, or I don't want this to happen, or I don't like this direction, then we instantly. Self gaslight self and validate because it must [00:17:00] be my problem at must be me not devoted enough to God, or not trusting my father that he actually loves me.

What were some things that I don't want, I want people to read your book, but give me maybe one or two things that caused you to wake up and say something isn't okay here. Like, yeah. And start that process.

Cait: Yeah. And I think it kind of ties into what we were talking about before of, of like the outside world and how they perceive you.

So I, I found that people on the outside thought that I had chosen this life. You know, versus I'd grown up in it. And I think a lot of people in cults. Or high control groups, they might choose initially to join, but then they become so limited in their choices that it's not really true consent anymore.

So I think that's a big misunderstanding. So one of the [00:18:00] biggest things that happened to me, it sounds like such a small thing, but a couple people when I was in, you know, my early twenties, they asked me if I was okay with this life and if this was my choice. And. One of them was my sister in law, my brother had left years earlier, and another person, and they didn't realize how much that affected me because, of course, I had my answers, like, Oh, yes, this is my choice, and I'm gonna be a wife and mother someday.

I don't need to go to college. I don't need to have a job. So I had the script that I could say, But just them asking my opinion and what I wanted, nobody had ever asked me that before, because it didn't matter what I wanted and my choices didn't matter. So, so they didn't have to do a whole lot to get me to think for myself.

It was just a, just a simple question of, well, what do you think? And I was like, well, nobody, nobody cares about what I think. [00:19:00] And

katherine: that

Cait: was really impactful for me. So that's, that's one part. Of me like mentally trying to leave another part in the story is when I have this long courtship and my father puts an end to it.

I'm feeling heartbroken. And then I am punished because I have too many. I feel love for this person that I thought I was going to marry and. In my father's opinion, that's emotional impurity. And so I've basically cheated on my future spouse by loving this other man. And I have to repent and, you know, turn back to the right path.

And I just knew that I just knew in that moment, like, this is wrong. This can't be true because. How could me loving someone be wrong

katherine: or

Cait: sinful or deserve God's wrath? And so I just didn't believe it at that moment. I was like, [00:20:00] that's not true. And I kept that to myself. Well, I actually think I did say something to my dad, like, how can that be wrong?

That didn't go over very well, but

katherine: Oh my goodness.

Cait: It took me four more years to leave, you know, so, but, Okay. Those were big moments for me to shift my thinking and start thinking for myself, start making plans and realizing I might be able to choose something different in the future.

katherine: Mm hmm. I think that's why I enjoy talking to you, like, whenever we get to spend time with each other and talk about our families.

It's just such a It's so soothing and like such a relief to talk to you because I'll tell, I'll tell the story to other people. And there's, there could be fun. I have a group of friends where like, I'll talk about it and we'll just like laugh about it and just be like, Oh my gosh, I'll just like, make fun, make fun of it.

But I think that. Just talking to you, you get how [00:21:00] complex it is. And like, everyone is like, well, I wouldn't put up with that. And I would just, you know, flip the middle finger and I would be done with it. And like all of the layers that are, that are present, not just that emotional layer and that trauma bond and that betrayal bond that exists, but then the Economic layer too, of not having a college degree, not being able to have a career, not having we had skills, like we knew how to do things, but we didn't know how to write resumes.

We didn't know how to, you know interview, we didn't know how to apply for a job, you know, like gratefully we had like, You know, drivers license and social security numbers, but there are plenty of people who don't even have that. And yeah, you know, wives whose have their husbands have their passports locked away in a safe.

And, you know, just like all of these dynamics that, [00:22:00] like, You're you're traumatized and you're in the survival state and you're trying to figure out how to escape with all of these things against you. Like four years is a long time, but it's also like, that's how long it takes to just kind of figure out like what to do, where to go, especially when you and I were both raised in this, like to even have, we don't have a baseline.

to go to. We're having to like create our own baseline with nothing.

Cait: Yeah. And I was so, I was so angry at my younger self for not leaving, like years later in my thirties. Now I've found myself just feeling really pissed at her. Like, why don't you just like give yourself a chance? Cause I lost so much of my, well, I lost my entire adolescence and my most of my twenties to this.

And so [00:23:00] I felt a lot of anger. But then, you know, processing that, feeling all my feelings, you know, what we're supposed to do, and then realizing, all the feelings. I feel all the feelings. And trying to learn to have compassion for her. And I, I do feel differently now. I've shifted to feeling more compassion because she didn't have a lot of options.

It was very unsafe to do anything outside of the rules.

katherine: And

Cait: she didn't know, she didn't have any practice doing that. So

katherine: you

Cait: know, it's, when people are going through this, it's, there's a lot of shame, I think, that we can feel when we don't leave right away or we, you know, we go through stuff and we don't stand up for ourselves.

We can feel a lot of shame afterwards, but I think it's, it's important to not blame ourselves for abuse. That's just, you know, it's not our fault.

katherine: It's not. Yeah. I think one of the thoughts that I had a lot was like, why did I let him do that to me? Like, why did I, what? And it was, [00:24:00] it's just like, I mean, I know I'm just like looking at it, you know, from a distance, like I didn't let him, like, I didn't know that there were, you know, like, like you're, you don't really have any agency and any choice and it's not safe to like fight back or talk back.

And, you know, it's just. It's that reality and it's such a survival mechanism, such a common trauma response to feel that way, because we're, we're trying to create a narrative where we had some control. So then we don't have that same situation happened to us again, and we can avoid it. And, and, and it's, it's difficult to grasp.

That someone, especially in a dynamic like ours, where it was family and it was our father, you know, like to grasp that someone would just mistreat us and to just let all of that be on [00:25:00] them and recognize we did nothing to deserve this treatment and That's so much easier said than done. It is, it's a part of the process of getting to that place where we can let all of that responsibility lay at the foot of the abusers and not carry that and recognize ways that we did fight back.

And that's my next question for you. What are ways that you see now that you did fight back while you were in it?

Cait: I was very good rule follower for most of my childhood. I have older, I had two older siblings. And so watching them get punished, I was like, I'm not going to do that. And so I learned really early on how to get on my dad's good side which sounds manipulative, but really it was just safety coping mechanism.

katherine: Absolutely.

Cait: So, I felt like for most of my childhood, I didn't fight back at all. I [00:26:00] just felt really passive. But the one outlet for me was reading. And for some reason, books seemed non threatening to my, my father, like movies were. So books for some reason seemed mostly neutral to him. So I could go to the library and read almost anything.

I was very good at self policing. I would throw books in the trash if I thought they didn't follow the rules. And I hate that I did that. I hate that I did that. But I still read them. I just felt guilty afterwards. But I remember in my 20s reading a few young adult novels. And like, it just felt like this anthropology, like, class and like the young adult, like, what is a teenager like?

Let me investigate this. What,

katherine: what

Cait: is this

katherine: specimen?

Cait: Yeah. Yeah. And it was, I couldn't relate to what they were doing in the stories, but I could relate to how they felt. And I think I didn't throw those ones [00:27:00] away. I hid them. And I mean, I was in my 20s. I shouldn't have had to hide any books. I know.

katherine: Yeah.

Cait: Things like that, where I was like, I'm going to find this information for myself and not tell anybody. That, that was resistance in a way. It wasn't standing up to my father. I didn't stand up to my father until I realized he was sabotaging every chance at A marriage that I had, and I talk about a few of them in the book, but there was like at least four potential relationships that he shut down.

And the last one is the person I, I married, I'm still married to, and I knew from the previous relationships that I didn't want him to ruin my, the rest of my life, and I was falling in love with this person and didn't want to give up. So that was my big, big deal. My big leap of resistance was saying, I get to love who I love and I'm going to fight for that relationship.

And so that was the big [00:28:00] catalyst for me to leave.

katherine: Yeah. How do you make sense of the fact that like you're being raised to get married and I have the same experience, like in my family of just like we're being raised conditioned incubated to be wives. Yet, it just seems like my father didn't actually want us to get married, like you made it so hard and like any guys that.

You know, tried to do the things they could never get it right. And it was just awful, awful, awful explosions every time. And it was like, do you actually want us to get married? How do you make sense of that? Like watching that happen?

Cait: Yeah. I mean, I just, I can speculate. I don't know. Like I, I've, I can speculate that my father really loves to control.

And it's interesting [00:29:00] because he let my sister get married. Well, she, he found somebody who's just like him for my sister to get married to. And so that went off, you know, she was able to get married and she's divorced now. So she's been through a whole journey of, of coming out that direction. But for me, I don't know if he like, I always, my family always said I was his favorite, which bothers me now.

And I think I was just really good at conforming. And so I don't know if he wanted to let go of his control over me. Like it was really difficult to do anything. And I'm not sure if he would have felt like such a strong person. Like I was for a time, I was the only kid living in the house because my brother had gone to live with the pastor.

It's a whole nother story. With trying to get men to be like leaders, you know, when they go live with your pastor. So I was the only, I was the only kid left, right? So maybe he just didn't want to let go of me. [00:30:00] And who would his, what would his identity be without children to rule over? I don't know. So that's, that's the speculation I have.

But nobody, nobody could was perfect enough. And also I wasn't attracted to people like him. I think

katherine: I

Cait: didn't want to marry somebody who was narcissistic.

katherine: That was part of it. Yeah. If I remember correctly, was your older sister kind of, In quotes, rebellious and like the marriage kind of tamed was like meant to tame her.

Is that kind of like the dynamic that happened there?

Cait: Yeah, she almost eloped with somebody and decided at the last minute not to do that and came home and was like repentant. And then like a year or so later, my dad helped find a husband for her and You know, I, I don't know if she really had a true choice in that relationship.

So it was really, it's really tragic to me to remember those times. [00:31:00] Yeah. Being confused, thinking that she was choosing it. But knowing now that we didn't have many choices at all.

katherine: Right. And,

Cait: yeah, but now seeing her come through that and being a single mom and working and, you know, she owns land now, it's, it's beautiful to see her come into herself now.

katherine: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The whole control thing around marriage when like, you're being like conditioned for that, but then they sabotage it every turn or, and I, I remember thinking that logically about like, my father like wants me to marry someone like him and similar to you.

That's not gonna work for me. But at the same time, being aware that anyone that was like him, they just massively butted heads. And so it's like, it's not gonna work because someone like him will fight back, you know, like, won't, won't. Won't be the pleasing, compliant, [00:32:00] sit at his feet, learn from him, you know, like, it's like, pick, pick, pick a team, like, which one do you want?

And that, I mean, I think that's a characteristic of both of our upbringings and any cult like setting, high control fundamentalist setting is. Illogic and confusion are everywhere and as like certain as they want it to be and, you know, right and orthodox as they claim that it is. There's so much confusion and just different like speaking out of different sides of the mouth and all really boils down to is that key leader gets to decide.

Cait: Yeah, like the purity culture. The purity culture, like, leads it to everything. So, you know, everything has to be perfect. I grew up, like, really Calvinist. So, like, all your actions have to be perfect. And so, I think that's part of it. Like, you can never find a [00:33:00] suitable husband that was absolutely perfect for me.

Because there's always a flaw that he would find. And I, we live very isolated. So, I imagine if I lived back where I had grown up in Colorado, it would have been a little easier for him to find a husband for me. That would have fit his description, but we lived pretty isolated after at that point. So I don't think anybody measured up to his perfect standard.

katherine: Yeah, he couldn't go on a nation tour to find the perfect husbands. Oh my gosh, it's just like so weird.

Cait: Or writing the letters. He didn't do that. I refused to let him write letters.

katherine: Oh, to, like, seek a husband for you. Yeah,

Cait: because in the book I talk about that one woman who lived with us because she wanted to get married.

katherine: And your father, like, found someone.

Cait: Yeah, he wrote letters to every church in our district, you know, our presbytery, and found somebody. And I was like, that's [00:34:00] not, I do not want you to do that for me. I would be mortified.

katherine: Male order husband. No, not okay. Not okay. Not okay. Were you like expressing like desperation and like wanting to get married?

No. No.

Cait: Yeah. I, I've all my friends got married so young and I was like, I want to fall in love. I want to like travel the world. I didn't really, you know, I had those desires for romance, but not like must become wife and mother that, that really.

katherine: Yeah. I'm glad though. I think it probably saved you. Intrinsic, intrinsic desires, your desires, like what you really wanted actually helped save you.

Cait: Yeah.

katherine: Talk to me about writing and how that played a role has played a role in your journey.

Cait: I think writing has always been like, it's tied with reading books. I've always been away from me to escape. And so I always wanted to write a book. [00:35:00] And I think telling stories was always difficult for me because I didn't have a whole lot of data to write stories from.

But I was just, I just would want it to be a writer. And so when I finally left. I thought, I'm going to go to college and study how to write, you know, and actually learn how to do this. That became a way for me to express myself. You know, I had been, I'm a really quiet person, or at least I used to be.

And so writing is a way for me to use my voice without feeling panicked about being too loud. I don't feel that way anymore, but that's, you know, that's how I felt. And writing, I wanted to write fiction and My own story kept bleeding through everything and no matter what I was writing at school It ended up being about the way I was raised or what I had gone through and I was like dang it I don't want to write about that.

Like this is not important anymore and [00:36:00] That was incorrect and it needed to get written out Like I needed to get it out of my body and onto some paper and that's why I started writing my particular story And it was really freeing. when I started sharing some of it online, that's when I realized I'm not the only person who's gone through this.

That kind of set me off to this whole journey of writing my story publicly and connecting with people who grew up in this movement. And it's been really liberating. Really like, it feels like a lot, a lot of the time because telling our stories is really vulnerable, but I don't, I wouldn't change a thing.

Like, I feel stronger because I'm able to be authentic, you know, instead of trying to hide who I am.

katherine: Yeah, absolutely. Do you feel like this has kind of like gotten it out and that you are ready for [00:37:00] something new or do you feel like there's still more to come? story to tell.

Cait: I feel, I'm really great, really excited to write some fiction now.

I've been like playing around with some stories and I feel like I have some actual outside in the world experience to draw from and maybe something more interesting to say. And so, yeah, I feel liberated now that my story is done. It's out there. It can go do its work and I can write something else now.

So I'm excited to see what that's like. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get away from What I'm interested in like, which is psychology and like personal trauma and resilience and those kinds of themes. I don't know if I'll ever get away from that because that's just who I am, but I don't think I need to write my memoir again.

katherine: Yeah, it's done. I did it. Yeah, we good. What are your hopes and dreams for people reading your book?

Cait: My first, you know, when you're when you're trying to sell a book to a publisher, [00:38:00] they always ask you what your audience is. is and you have like different layers of audience. My number one audience has always been people who grew up like me or who are in domestic abuse situations or who have left those.

I want them to feel seen the way certain books have helped me feel seen because I'm a trans woman. To my knowledge, there's not a memoir out there about being a stay at home daughter or besides maybe the Duggar Girls books. So I think, I'm really hoping that people who grew up this way feel like they can see their own experience on the page and, and help them process, you know, because for me, writing it is a, is the way I process it.

And I'm hoping that people who love to read will, that will help them. And then. I hope that people who didn't grow up this way will have a little bit more understanding of how complex it is. You know, I've, I think some people might say, Oh, this isn't, isn't as extreme as like the book educated [00:39:00] where there's, you know, more physical violence.

But I want people to understand that that doesn't necessarily matter to how people can be harmed. I think

katherine: it's still

Cait: important and we shouldn't shut people down because they don't have physical injuries. I think this kind of abuse is damaging too. I hope it's, it opens that conversation up a little bit more because I think this is a pretty common experience.

katherine: Oh yeah, I think it's so common and I think I would say that's one thing I do appreciate your book is that the normal things that end up making a story sensational like violence or sexual abuse the, the, the level of it isn't there yet you are still able to show the damage. That it did to you and I think that's going to be so validating for so many people and just kind of flipping the narrative, you know, like people just [00:40:00] chase after those types of stories for the sensationalism, but there's a lot of damage that happens in.

The shadows and looks like Christianity looks like love, and you are able to express that really well in your book. So I hope folks, folks read it and tell, tell people where they can find it and tell people where they can find you.

Cait: Yeah. My website is Kate west. com. So I do have links for the book there as well as events I'm doing.

So Come find me where you live. Hopefully I come close to you and you can buy the book anywhere online. It's going to be. In bookstores as well. I know Barnes and Noble is stocking them in, in quite a few of their stores and then you can order them from your independent bookstore. You can ask for them at your library.

So you don't even have to spend money. You could just ask for a copy at your library. Do that

katherine: people! Support [00:41:00] the libraries and support Facebook.

Cait: Yeah, you don't have to support writers just by buying their books. You can get them at your libraries and that really does help because the libraries buy them and then other people can read them too.

And I'm also, there's a hardcover, an ebook and an audio book. So I got to read the audio. If you'd rather listen to me reading the story, you can do that too. So there's all the different formats as well.

katherine: Fantastic. Any other thoughts or any other things that you want to say?

Cait: I'd love to hear what you think about the book when you read it.

I hope there's a contact form on my page, on my website, and I'm on social media, so I'd love to hear what you think. Yeah. Just hit me up.

katherine: Fantastic. I will link to your website in the show notes. Thanks for coming on uncertain and for everybody who is listening and is part of tears of eating community.

Kate is also on the editorial board for tears of Eden. And so a lot of the content that shows up on our blog Kate [00:42:00] has. Generated and some foreign men has been been behind that. So we're super, super grateful for her. And I also realized just this morning that she shouted out to tears of Eden in her book.

And I was so excited. I sent her like a picture and heart eyes and a text because I was like, very excited that she shouted out to to tears of Eden. We're going to be famous now. It's a great resource. Well, thanks again, Kate, thanks for being here. Thank you.

Uncertain is produced, recorded, edited, and hosted by me, Katherine Spearing. Intro music is from the band Green Ashes.

I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. And if you have, please take a moment to like subscribe and leave a review. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you next time.