Elle's sensory gain is extremely high. She walks into a room and immediately reads every mood, every tension, every unspoken thing. That's not introversion — she's not drained by people, she's drained by input. And it's not anxiety — she's not worried about things that might happen, she's processing things that are actually there. Slow-Recovering means the load doesn't clear fast. The "too sensitive" label was other people describing her hardware in their language.
What changed
"I stopped trying to fix it. I don't go to loud places and then wonder why I'm exhausted. I don't take on other people's emotions and then blame myself for feeling heavy. I know what I'm carrying now. I choose what's worth it."