Syleena Johnson is in a great place these days.
The singer and TV personality has a new album out, Legacy, honoring her journey and the life of her father, late blues legend and Hall of Famer Syl Johnson, which she says will be her last. She’s on the road touring in promotion of the work, and she’s feeling good, especially mentally.
It takes work, though. A few years ago, like many people, Johnson was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. She lost her work on the TV One talk show Sister Circle, her ability to hit the stage, and her confidence that things would be okay. The anxiety she was used to feeling reached an overwhelming peak. And when she finally got to get things off of her chest with a professional, they told her that her level of stress and fear was more serious than she realized.
“Not having a means to survive, so to speak, was extremely traumatic,” she tells ESSENCE. “I would be in therapy sessions, and I’d talk a lot about some of the things that I was feeling and going through, and we wouldn’t just be speaking about it stemming from the pandemic itself. We would speak about it from the origin, which was some of the traumas that I experienced as a child in regards to bullying and not just being bullied by kids at school, but also being bullied by men, being bullied by family members. Because mental abuse is a form of bullying. Losing money and being in the music business, as well as the way you’re treated in the music business, is nuts. It’s a lot of rejection. So always thinking that you’re not going to get something is a constant. It all adds to the idea of not being certain about your life.”
Unexpectedly, she was given a diagnosis: Intolerable uncertainty disorder. The 2004 study The Role of Intolerance of Uncertainty in Etiology and Maintenance described it as “the tendency to react negatively on an emotional, cognitive, and behavioral level to uncertain situations and events.”
Fear of the unknown is common for many people, but for Johnson, it became debilitating. It would creep into everyday things and even impact her ability to perform.
“I’m nervous to go outside now because I think there’s going to be too many bugs,” she recalls. Little sh-t like that. I don’t want to go on stage. They’re not going to like the show. I just could not tolerate being uncertain. And so everything was always in that vein. Even positive moments turned into those kinds of instances. And that really is dangerous because it manifests in your life. It’s really basically a form of negative thinking.”
And it wasn’t just thoughts. Her concern would manifest itself in physical symptoms. Extreme fear would turn into panic attacks, possibly hives, and “sometimes it would be tears.” Her fears were also exacerbated by motherhood.
“My youngest son has autism. That alone puts me in a predicament of not knowing what is going to be the quality of life of my child. And there’s nothing that I can do about that,” Johnson, who has two teenage boys, says. “And I live that reality every single day.”
She adds, “When you have a child with special needs, you are in constant fight or flight mode or constantly worrying about if my baby’s going to be okay. And just the quality of life. So I think that the triggers intolerable uncertainty disorder.”
Once Johnson received a name for her behavior, though, she was able to begin working to counter those negative, debilitating thoughts.
It allows me to catch myself,” she says. “It requires positive affirmations and redirecting my way of thinking. You have to constantly affirm yourself and make it a habit. And you have to do a lot of positive self-talk. You have to surround yourself with people who understand your diagnosis, take it seriously, and can kind of communicate and behave around you in such a way.”
These practices have made a great difference in bringing peace to Johnson. She’s focused not only on positive thinking but on realistic thinking. She has learned, in the midst of uncertainty, to handle things as they come, one at a time. She calls it doing things with “meticulous precision,” and that includes parenting.
Now that I’ve been in therapy, it’s all about meticulous precision, meaning narrow that sh-t down the way that it comes. Don’t take it as this immense amount of pressure at once. You can’t take on the entire thing. It’s not possible,” she says. “So with meticulous precision: step by step by step. It’s day by day, situation by situation, step by step. There is no blueprint. You just have to slow everything down. When everything is coming fast, you have to slow down and then deal with it as it comes. The truth of the matter is that we cannot control everything in the world. You just can’t. And you can’t get to everything when everybody else wants you to get to it. It’s just that simple.”
This way of doing things has also helped her pour into herself, too. There’s no such thing as being a people pleaser when you decide to handle things one issue at a time.
“That’s kind of how you put yourself first. These people will get over it. They’ll be okay. And you also have to think they might be on the other end dealing with intolerable uncertainty and anxiety too, which is why they are weighing you down to get something,” she says. “You can only give people what you have at the moment. You can not give them more than that because you don’t have it. And when we try to do that all the time, that’s how you find yourself empty.”
She adds, “But it really is a meticulous decision. You just have to slow life down. You have to slow down and be okay with slowing down.”
This practice, along with prioritizing other modes of self-care, like working out at the gym, going to church and fellowshipping, spending time with her circle of friends, going for walks in nature, and every now and then, spending the day in her pajamas, catching up on TV, all makes a difference in her mental health. No more hives. No more panic attacks. No more extreme fear.
“I just try to make sure I get those kinds of moments in as much as possible because there is a level of anxiety that I’m going to face regardless,” Johnson notes. “You cannot escape it. The trials and tribulations are always there. There’s nothing you can do about that, but you can create instances in your life where you can manage it, where you can be in control of it. You can’t let it be in control of you because it’s going to be there, but it’s just about how you deal with it, and it’s about who you are in it.”
