Mamas at work: Syleena Johnson on suffering from unbearable insecurity disorder

Syleena Johnson is in an excellent place right away.

The singer and tv personality has released a brand new album that pays tribute to her journey and the lifetime of her father, late blues legend and Hall of Famer Syl Johnson, which she says can be her last. He is on tour promoting his work and feels good, especially mentally.

However, it takes work. Just a few years ago, like many individuals, Johnson felt the strong impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. She lost her job on a TV One talk show, her ability to go on stage and her confidence that the whole lot can be OK. The anxiety she was accustomed to had reached an awesome peak. And when she finally managed to deal along with her problems with a specialist, they told her that her stress and fear levels were more serious than she thought.

“Not having the means to survive, so to speak, was extremely traumatic,” he tells ESSENCE. “I used to be in therapy sessions and I talked loads about a number of the things that I used to be feeling and going through, but what we didn’t speak about was just that it was because of the pandemic itself. We’ve talked about this from the very starting, from the traumas that I experienced as a baby because of bullying and never only being bullied by kids at school, but additionally being bullied by men, being bullied by relations. Because mental abuse is a type of abuse. Losing money and being within the music industry and the best way you might be treated within the music industry is crazy. That’s a variety of rejection. So the constant thought that you’re going to get something is constant. All this increases the sensation of insecurity in a single’s life.

Unexpectedly, she was diagnosed with: Unacceptable disruption of uncertainty. A 2004 study described it as “the tendency to react negatively at the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral levels to uncertain situations and events.”

Fear of the unknown is common for many individuals, but for Johnson it became debilitating. It would creep into on a regular basis life and even affect her ability to perform.

“I’m really afraid to go outside because I think there will be too many bugs,” she recalls. Such a bit shit. I don’t need to go on stage. They won’t like this show. I just couldn’t stand the uncertainty. And so the whole lot has all the time been on this spirit. Even positive moments have became these sorts of incidents. And this is de facto dangerous since it manifests itself in your life. It is basically a type of negative pondering.”

And they weren’t just thoughts. Her anxiety manifested itself in physical symptoms. The extreme fear became panic attacks, possibly hives, and “sometimes it was tears.” Her fears were even deepened by motherhood.

“My youngest son has autism. This alone puts me in a difficult situation because I don’t know what my child’s quality of life will be like. And there’s nothing I can do about it,’ says Johnson, who has two teenage boys. “And I live in that reality every day.”

She adds: “When you could have a baby with special needs, you are always in fight or flight mode or always worrying if my child goes to be OK. And simply quality of life. So I feel it creates an unbearable uncertainty disorder.

But once Johnson was given a reputation for her behavior, she could begin to work on countering these negative, debilitating thoughts.

Thanks to this, I can control myself,” he says. “It requires positive affirmations and a change in mindset. You must always validate yourself and develop a habit. And it’s worthwhile to have a variety of positive self-talk. You must surround yourself with individuals who understand your diagnosis, take it seriously, and might communicate with you and behave around you in a roundabout way.

These practices had a huge effect on bringing peace to Johnson. It focuses not only on positive pondering, but additionally on realistic pondering. She has learned, within the midst of uncertainty, to take care of things as they arise, one at a time. She calls it doing things with “meticulous precision,” and that features parenting.

Now that I’m in therapy, it’s all about being meticulously precise, which implies narrowing down what is going on on. Don’t look at it as a variety of pressure all at once. You cannot take on the whole lot. It’s unimaginable,” he says. “So with extreme precision: step by step. Day by day, situation by situation, step by step. There is no plan. You just have to slow everything down. When things come fast, you have to slow down and deal with what’s happening. The truth is that we cannot control everything in the world. You just can’t. And you can’t achieve everything when everyone wants you to achieve it. It’s that simple.”

This way of acting also helped her to look deeper into herself. There is not any such thing as pleasing people for those who resolve to take things one at a time.

“That way you put yourself first. These people can handle it. They’ll be fine. You also have to think that on the other side they may also be struggling with unbearable uncertainty and anxiety, which is why they put the burden on you to get something,” he says. “You can only give people what you could have right away. You cannot give them more since you haven’t got it. And once we try to do that on a regular basis, we find yourself feeling empty.

He adds: “But it’s really a really detailed decision. You just must decelerate life. You must decelerate and accept that you just are slowing down.

This practice, together with prioritizing other ways of self-care equivalent to exercising at the gym, attending church and fellowship, spending time together with your circle of friends, taking walks in nature, and sometimes spending the day in your pajamas, catching up on TV, is the whole lot affects her mental health. No more hives. No more panic attacks. No more extreme fear.

“I just try to make those moments happen as often as possible because I still have to deal with a certain level of anxiety,” Johnson notes. “You cannot run away from it. Trials and suffering are all the time present. There’s nothing you’ll be able to do about it, but you’ll be able to create instances in your life where you’ll be able to take care of it, where you’ll be able to have control over it. You cannot let it control you because it should, but it surely’s all about the way you take care of it and who you might be in it.