Replicate Topics I've participated in

I'm trying to replicate this component from the profile page, so I can adjust some settings.

Problem is, the component sorts on conversation.last_post_date and I can't SORT BY that field when using "SELECT DISTINCT topic.id FROM messages WHERE author.id = '<user-id>'" using the API.

If I try "SORT BY post_date" they obviously don't sort properly.

I assume there's a easier way than pulling ALL the topics and then sorting them by last_post_date?

Has anyone figured this out?