I worry soooooo much. If my children are even a few minutes late, all kinds of things start running through my head. If they get a little sick, I start to think something terrible is going to happen. I'm not depressed -- I love life. But I seem to be getting more obsessed with worrying daily. Please help.

-- Sharon

The worrying you describe may be more a manifestation of anxiety than of depression. If that's the case, then you may benefit from strategies to reduce anxiety, stress and worry. Identifying and changing problematic cognitive (thinking) patterns might be of particular benefit.

For instance, you already seem to be aware that your thinking about terrible things happening to your children plays a role in your distress. Cognitive therapy techniques could help you identify and change those specific thinking patterns and any others that might contribute to anxiety.

Another possible strategy is to remind yourself of the difference between legitimate fear -- which is of a truly dangerous event that has a realistic chance of occurring -- and worrying, in which a person focuses on events that are actually out of his or her control. The healthy response to a realistic threat or danger is to avoid it or make contingency plans to handle the feared event should it actually occur. For instance, if we're worried about harm coming to our loved ones, we can do what we reasonably can to protect them -- making them wear seat belts, locking up guns and poisons, etc. -- and then remind ourselves that there will always be things over which, sadly, we have no control, such as drunk drivers. Fortunately, if we and our family members engage in basic health and safety behaviors, the odds are good that on a day-to-day basis, few really bad things will happen to us.

It's the random events that can shatter a parent's heart -- fatal traffic accidents, terminal illnesses, etc. -- and WE HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THESE. We'll do ourselves and our families a favor if we stop our futile attempts to control -- through worrying -- those random things over which we can have no control. To achieve that end, some people use the cognitive approach of reminding themselves that worrying is counterproductive. Worrying will not prevent the feared event; instead, it just makes us miserable. And of course, many people find comfort in turning the feared outcome over to God.

Sometimes when clients of mine have a hard time letting go of excessive worrying about their children, I recommend that they focus some of that energy into other facets of their lives ... hobbies, jobs, friends, social activities. Odds are that they've neglected their own self-care in some ways due to the rigors of child rearing.