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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 120833" data-attributes="member: 22">Well, it did and it didn't. The reason the show gave for Sue Ellen's behaviour towards her son wasn't postnatal depression, but that fact that, to quote Sue Ellen herself, "I was used by two cruel men" and that she allowed herself to be used by them. Admittedly, her behaviour would seem to tally with the symptoms of post-natal depression, but Dallas never diagnosed that as the cause. In fact, the only person who mentioned the term was Patricia who was depicted as minimising her daughter's problems by saying "she must be suffering from that postpartum depression -- it's not uncommon." Also, the "cure" provided for Sue Ellen's malady, however you wish to term it, was almost daily visits to an expensive psychiatrist. So I'm not sure how much practical help Sue Ellen's storyline would have offered to someone who was suffering from postnatal depression in 1979. But happily, Dallas was more in the business of entertaining than helping its audience at that time. Had the story been explicitly about postnatal depression it would have lost a lot of its impact. Instead, it was about a group of fascinatingly sick people and their effect on each other.</blockquote>