Stacy Pershall: BPD and Functional Improvement Luncheon at OPI

Stacy Pershall, with OPI and OPI Intensive Executive Director, psychiatrist Robert Fischer, M.D., at the recent luncheon where she spoke with our staff.

We were so fortunate to have Stacy Pershall, author and Active Minds speaker, visit us again a couple of weeks ago.  Stacy shared a short version of her powerful story and offered insight to our team about her struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), a fight she is winning with Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). She now uses this experience to help others and has certainly encouraged our participants in this capacity on a previous visit.

Stacy presented to our team and some local professionals interested in her presentation topic “Borderline Personality Disorder and Functional Improvement,” which OPI offered as a continuing education (CEU) opportunity. After our luncheon and free-forum, during which we had an opportunity to talk with her openly, our team filled Stacy in on what OPI and our OPI Intensive for young adults with BPD and BPD traits are all about.

Up next was a meet and greet with our current participants, some of whom met her during her last visit. Unlike Stacy’s formal presentation with our participants back in May, we left this time together open for Stacy to give a quick overview of Active Minds, the company she mentors through, and then share more about herself. The participants then instantly started asking her questions. Some were anxious to share their own struggles, while others wanted to know how Stacy had made it through all of hers. Questions ranged from how to work on target behaviors in therapy and worries about whether their therapist would give up on them, to balancing treatment and getting back into the workforce. Some participants wanted to know specifics about how Stacy had gotten to this place in her life and whether it would work for them. Others had some general questions regarding making it through treatment and working on relationships.

There wasn’t a moment when someone didn’t ask a question, and even those participants we know to be on the quieter side chimed in. It was a delight to see them engaged and curious along with willing to hear another person’s struggle. The hope is that our participants have gained insight from someone who has been on a similar path to theirs. We know that each individual definitely has their own path they’ve gone down or are walking back from in recovery, and at the same time there is something to be said about learning that someone else has felt similar to you and can relate – and that they have overcome.

Stacy bridges that gap between our participants and the treatment team they work with that tells and encourages them that they can feel differently. She has lived it and is willing to share that piece of herself in order to benefit those around her. It was a pleasure having Stacy with us again and rewarding to see our participants engage with her. We look forward to having Stacy back with us again in the near future.