If you could be a fly on the wall...

If I could be a fly on the wall, I'd land quietly at Yale’s National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder (NEABPD) conference. There’s something profoundly human about being in a room where people—clinicians, researchers, family members, and individuals with lived experience—gather not just to exchange data or diagnoses, but to push the conversation forward about what it means to actually live with BPD, to love someone with it, or to help guide healing.

As the writer behind Living Level, I'm drawn to spaces where the emotional undercurrents run just as strong as the academic ones. The NEABPD conference is one of those rare crossroads: science meets storytelling, theory meets practice, and most importantly, stigma meets resistance. I’d be listening not only to the presentations and panels, but to the hallway conversations—the raw, unscripted moments where change often begins.

If we want to write honestly about emotional survival, mental health, and growth, we need to witness the places where those conversations are happening in real time. And for anyone committed to compassionate mental health advocacy, Yale’s conference isn’t just an academic event. It’s a window into the future of how we support and see each other.

Where would you go if you could listen in on something that matters?