The Story of Lady – From Phoenix Rising
Q A Phoenix Rising Segment: Stories of Resilience Behind These Walls
Hey Empresses,
Welcome to something new, something I’ve been holding in my heart for a while now. This is the beginning of a segment I’m calling “Different Journeys, Same Destinations,” and I come to you today as Phoenix Rising—an incarcerated mother of two, a woman learning daily what it means to rise from ashes, and someone who believes that every woman’s story deserves to be heard.
Let me tell you how this started.
In today’s segment, I want to share the story of a young lady I met while incarcerated. She goes by the name of Lady Q—a short, mysterious, and cute name that holds the weight of the universe. When I first met her, I knew there was something about her that was troubled. There was a pain behind her smile that I recognized because I’ve worn that same smile myself.
Then something really drew me to her. She was wearing a pink band—the band that signifies that she was with child. She wasn’t the only one incarcerated; her unborn baby was as well. (P.S. I think she will be having a girl. I’m good with that, so Lady Q, when you have your baby, send me an email with the gender! Anyone who knows me knows that I care deeply for the women who are pregnant behind these walls.)
There’s something sacred about carrying life in a place designed to contain it. When a pregnant woman asks for something, I’m always ready to give for the baby’s sake. Nobody but God knows why the mother kept her unborn child or why that child is still developing. Only God knows the purpose for the mother and her child, so we are in no position to judge another person based on current circumstances—incarcerated or not.
Lady Q, thank you so much for being so brave and sharing your story with the world. Thank you for trusting me to help you write it. Your courage in speaking your truth is going to light the way for so many other women who think their stories are too broken, too messy, too shameful to be told.
But before I share Lady Q’s story, I need you to understand why this segment exists.
My story isn’t the only one that needs to be shared. Behind these walls are women of resilience— mothers, daughters, sisters, survivors—whose voices have been silenced by circumstance, by shame, by a system that sees our mistakes before it sees our humanity. Every woman here has a
story. Every woman here has fought battles that would break others. Every woman here deserves to be heard.
This segment is for us. For the ones who’ve been told we don’t matter. For the ones carrying babies and burdens that the world can’t see. For the ones who are breaking chains, even from behind bars.
So here is Lady Q’s story, told in her own words, as she shared it with me. I haven’t changed a thing—this is her truth, her voice, her testimony.
Lady Q’s Story: In Her Own Words
Phoenix, I need you to understand something before I tell you the rest. When people hear my story, they want to make me a hero or a victim. But I’m neither. I’m just a woman who survived, who’s still surviving, who’s trying to figure out how to turn all this pain into something that means something.
They call me Lady Q now, but that name feels almost like a joke sometimes. Like someone pinned a crown on my head while I was still covered in ashes, still bleeding from wounds I gave myself. But maybe that’s the point—perhaps we don’t wait until we’re healed to claim our names. Maybe we claim them in the middle of the mess and let them pull us forward.
The Fire That Changed Everything
I was the second oldest of eight kids. Eight. Can you imagine that, Phoenix? A two-bedroom duplex with eight children, and my mama somehow makes it work. She was a magician with nothing—turning food stamps into feasts, stretching every dollar until it screamed. We didn’t have much, but we had each other, and for a while, that felt like enough.
Then came the fire.
I don’t talk about this part much because even now, years later, it steals my breath. I was young, and my six-year-old brother didn’t make it out. Seven of us walked through those flames and lived. One didn’t. And Phoenix, I want you to know—I believe in God because of that fire. How else do you explain seven children surviving? But I also question God because of that fire. If He loved us enough to save seven, why not eight?
That question has lived in my chest like a stone ever since.
When the Light Went Out
The fire didn’t just take my brother. It took my mama too—not her body, but her spirit. Grief is a thief that keeps stealing long after the initial loss. It stole her smile, her attention, her ability to
see that she still had seven children standing in front of her, desperate to be held, desperate to be told that we still mattered.
I was so angry, Phoenix. Enraged at the silence in our house. Furious at the way my mama looked through me instead of at me. Angry that somehow, everything that went wrong became my fault. Things broke in our house—dishes, rules, trust—and I got blamed. But no one saw that I was already broken, that I was shattering from the inside out.
So, I broke more. If they were going to blame me anyway, I might as well earn it, right? That’s the logic of a thirteen-year-old girl who wants someone to notice she’s drowning.
The Beginning of the End (or So I Thought)
That’s when I found drugs. Well, drugs found me, really. They always find the girls who are looking for an exit from their own lives. And Phoenix, I need you to understand—I didn’t do drugs because they made me happy. I did them because they made me numb, and numbness felt like mercy when the alternative was feeling everything all at once.
My little sisters were watching. That’s what kills me most when I look back. Children don’t learn from what we say—they learn from what we do. And they saw their big sister disappearing into smoke and bad choices, and they thought, “That must be the way out.” They followed me into the dark because when you’re lost, you follow whoever’s ahead of you, even if they’re just as lost as you are.
I led them into hell, Phoenix. Not on purpose, but does intention matter when the damage is done?
The Man Who Called It Love
The first man who really paid attention to me also gave me drugs. He had a way of making me feel special, like I was chosen. He called it love. I called it survival because by then, I didn’t know the difference.
I got pregnant with my first son while I was with him. That tiny heartbeat growing inside me was the first thing in years that made me think maybe, just maybe, life could still mean something. But then his fists came.
Love shouldn’t leave bruises, Phoenix. Help shouldn’t come with conditions. Somewhere deep inside, I knew this, but when you’ve been starving for affection your whole life, even poisoned bread tastes like mercy. You eat it because you’re dying anyway, and at least this way you feel full for a minute.
I stayed high to stay “enough” for him. I twisted myself into shapes that weren’t mine, wore a mask so heavy I forgot my own face underneath. I became whoever he needed me to be because I thought that’s what love required—complete erasure of self.
The Weight of Unanswered Questions
Through all of this, I never stopped believing in God. How could I when seven of us walked out of that fire alive? But my faith was complicated, wrapped in barbed wire and broken glass. Every time I tried to reach for God, I cut myself on the same question: If You loved us, why didn’t You save my brother?
It’s the kind of question that doesn’t have easy answers, Phoenix. It’s the kind that lives in your chest like a stone, pressing down every time you try to rise. For years, I carried it. That question was almost heavier than the drugs, heavier than the abuse, heavier than the shame.
The Morning That Cracked Everything Open
Recently, my sister called me in tears. Her baby needed diapers, and she had nothing. Nothing, Phoenix. And what could I give her? I was barely holding my own life together. But I prayed— not a pretty prayer, not a church prayer, but a desperate, raw, honest one. “God, if You’re real, if You’re there, help her. Please. I can’t, but maybe you can.”
The next morning, a woman appeared at my sister’s door. Not a social worker. Not family. A woman I had met once, years ago, in one of my darkest places. She showed up with bags full of diapers, clothes, and everything my sister needed. She said she couldn’t explain it—she just felt like she needed to come.
That’s when it hit me, Phoenix. God hadn’t been absent. He hadn’t forgotten us in that fire or abandoned us in the years that followed. He’d been preparing both of us—me and that woman— for this exact moment. He was teaching me that restoration doesn’t always look like what we expect. Sometimes it seems like a stranger showing up with precisely what you need, exactly when you need it.
Sometimes God answers prayers through people who have no idea they’re the answer. The Children Who Keep Me Fighting
Today, I’m a mother of three sons, Phoenix, and I’m carrying a fourth child. I don’t know yet if this baby is a boy or a girl. Every night, I pray that my children will walk different paths than I did—ones lit by purpose instead of pain. I pray they’ll never have to numb themselves to survive, never have to trade their dignity for affection, never have to wonder if they matter.
And if this baby is a daughter? Phoenix, I whisper fierce promises into the dark: You will never doubt you are loved. You will never have to wear a mask to be worthy. You will know your worth from day one, from breath one, from the moment I hold you in my arms.
I’m finally ready—ready to let God restore what was stolen, prepared to find meaning in my brother’s death, ready to heal wounds that once seemed too deep to touch. I’m learning that resilience isn’t about never breaking. It’s about gathering your pieces, even the jagged ones, and building something new from them. Bible reference: Joel 2:25, And I will restore to you the
years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar and the palmworm, my great army which I sent among you.
What I Want You to Know
Phoenix, you created space for me to tell this story, and I need you to know what that means. For years, I thought my story was something to hide, to be ashamed of, to bury deep where no one could see it. But you taught me that our stories—even the messy, broken, ugly ones—have power.
If any woman reading this who sees herself in my words, I want her to hear this clearly:
You are not your worst mistakes. You are not the trauma that shaped you. You are not too broken to become whole.
I know because I was that woman. Hell, some days I still am. But I’m also the woman who’s breaking chains that have held my family for generations. I’m the woman learning to choose differently than she did yesterday. I’m the woman who’s discovering that healing doesn’t happen overnight—it happens in small moments, in prayers whispered through tears, in tiny acts of courage that no one else sees.
The question isn’t whether you’ve fallen. We’ve all lost. The question is whether you’re willing to stand back up, even if your legs are shaking, even if you’re scared, you’ll fall again.
And if I can do it—carrying all this weight, with all these reasons to give up, with all this history trying to pull me back down—so can you.
This Is Just the Beginning
My story isn’t finished, Phoenix. This isn’t the final chapter. I don’t have all the answers, and I’m not standing on the other side of the mountain waving down at everyone still climbing. I’m still on the mountain myself, still putting one foot in front of the other, still choosing to believe that the view from the top will be worth every painful step.
But I’m moving forward. And that’s enough for today.
I’m breaking chains. I’m rewriting narratives. I’m teaching my children a language different from the one I learned—a language of worth, purpose, and hope.
I’m Lady Q, and I’m finally learning what that crown really means. It doesn’t mean I’m perfect. It doesn’t mean I’ve arrived. It means I’m royalty even in the mess, even in the middle, even when I’m still bleeding from old wounds.
And so are you.
This is your beginning, too.
Phoenix Rising: A Final Word
Empresses, Lady Q’s story is one of thousands that need to be told. Behind these walls, we are more than our charges, more than our mistakes, more than the worst day of our lives. We are mothers, daughters, survivors, fighters. We are women who’ve walked through fire and are still standing.
This segment exists because silence has held us captive long enough. Our stories deserve to be heard—not to excuse what we’ve done, but to honor who we’re becoming.
If you’re reading this and you have a story burning inside you, I want to hear it. Suppose you’ve survived what you thought would kill you, if you’re breaking chains, if you’re finding redemption in impossible places—your story matters. Your voice matters. You matter.
Share Your Story
This is an ongoing segment. I’m creating space for women of resilience—incarcerated or not— to share their testimonies, their truths, their journeys from darkness to light.
Email your story to: unapologeticallycaged@gmail.com
Important:
• You can share anonymously or use a nickname for privacy reasons
• Your story is safe with me
• No judgment, only love and understanding
• Together, we break the chains of silence
Whether you’re behind these walls or on the outside looking in, whether you’re in the middle of your mess or standing on the other side of your miracle—I want to hear from you.
Lady Q was brave enough to speak her truth. Now it’s your turn.
Let’s rise together, Empresses.
With love and solidarity,
Phoenix Rising
Incarcerated Mother of Two
Breaking Chains, One Story at a Time
Email: unapologeticallycaged@gmail.com
Contact Form: Get in Touch
Remember: Your story could be the light someone else needs to find their way out of the dark.