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The Wi-Fi went out for two days and I felt calm for the first time in months. That terrified me. I sat there on my couch, Tuesday afternoon, just *breathing* — and I realized I couldn't remember the last time my chest felt this light. No buzzing in my head. No background static. Just... quiet. That's when the real panic started. Because if two days without Wi-Fi could make me feel human again, what did that say about the rest of my life? I'm Hannah. I'm a school counselor. I spend eight hours a day holding space for kids who are falling apart, then I come home and hold space for my own kids, and somewhere in between I'm supposed to be a whole person who sleeps and thinks clearly and doesn't want to cry in the Target parking lot. But lately — for months, really — I'd been walking around feeling like my nervous system was plugged into a live socket. Racing thoughts at 2 AM. Waking up exhausted. Walking into a room and instantly absorbing every single person's mood like I was made of emotional Velcro. I knew I was an empath. I'd known that for years. But this was different. This felt electrical. Like I was vibrating at a frequency that was slowly unraveling me. And then the Wi-Fi broke, and for 48 hours, I could *breathe*. I should've been relieved. Instead I was horrified.