We have observed a change in students, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), and instructors as more Gen Z members enter the university. Many are facing mental health issues and sharing about them in ways prior students, GTAs, and instructors did not. Knowing in general that Gen Z students have more anxiety and depression, we argue that empathic responses should inform our work in program administrating and teaching (Parker and Igielnik). While academic conversations have explored empathy at global and local levels, such as making empathy in writing program administration and in writing classrooms more transparent, many writing instructors and administrators may face challenges envisioning a teaching praxis grounded in empathy. In exploring three spaces--professional development, classroom, and administration--with a reflective lens, we assert that writing programs can help develop empathic versions of Sara Ahmed's "feminist killjoy survival kit" ("Living a Feminist Life") to help writing instructors find more compassionate paths of survival inside and outside classrooms. The creation of such toolkits can improve writing instructors' and administrators' abilities to foster pedagogical practices that encourage empathy, selfcare, and healthy boundaries in a larger culture of anxiety and depression without depleting students, GTAs, and instructors.