Why is empathy such a big deal?

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Empathy towards people is hard for me, I don't like humans and even when I do feel they deserve sympathy I can't express my feelings anyway.

Animals however, I cry when a goldfish dies. I care far more for animals than I ever will for people.

I know I don't have much empathy. I can have a lot of sympathy, though. It seems I have sympathy for quiet people easily. The less they complain about their problems the more I feel for them. For those who complain about everything I find it very hard to be sympathetic, even if they're truly mistreated. I'm definitely awkward at expressing my concerns for people. Too often I saying things like "It can be worse" "It's not that bad" "You just need to relax" "There's absolutely nothing to worry about, just fix it" to comfort people, which rarely worked. Sometimes I browse online for a solution to their problems and tell them how to fix it before they even finished telling, which was probably not the right way to be helpful.

I take care of my very old grandma. When she complains about her health problems my standard responses are "Anything I can do?" "Would you like to go see a doctor?" Would you like to call your daughters?" I understand that's not what she want but I just can't do it. Living with her already takes a lot of self control and patience. I can't pretend everyday to be somebody else, too.

I generally feel empathy when I see someone going through an emotion in a bad situation or bad experience similar to one I've had myself at some point.
I've found it a useful thing to have in some ways, wanting to help people and doing so; it helps everyone by helping each other when we need it.

Have you ever watched a nature program?
People may be cruel, greedy, bastards, but compared to alot of animals... we're pretty good!
A male lion, when it becomes the new alpha will kill and sometimes eat every cub, then `rape` the females so they all give birth to his heirs. And they're better than us? It seems to just be becasue we ARE more sivilised, that things people do that are like animals seem so much worse.
I unfortunatly feel a bit of empathy, I wish I didn't, I wish I could steal etc guilt free. But I can't ..... a well:(

I do experience empathy, but just not usually in the moment. It's usually thinking about something after it happened and suddenly realizing someone felt hurt or felt good and then feeling it. Or I might read something in the news about some injustice and feel a deep empathy for the victims, and because political-related things are part of my special interests I find myself reading about this all the time and even sometimes think back to it and feel it. Sometimes I'll miss things in social situations because my mind is off feeling empathy for people I heard about in the news, sometimes even for groups (feeling empathy for people in certain countries, for minority groups). If something is obvious like if someone trips and falls I immediately feel empathy. I just misinterpret things in conversations, facial expressions, and body language.

It's a big deal for me. I know how it feels not to receive it when I need it the most and to sit around for weeks waiting for it. I'm very empathetic towards other people. I always have been.

Its like this. have you ever watched the news? Notice how anytime time theres a scandle, the named sandale always has a name ending with "gate" watergate, party crashers gate,

ever since im shure people have been around if you arent like them, you're different and that makes you wierd! people want YOU to be just like them so thats why they call you names if you arent empathetic

Because it means that you care about them and if you don't care about them, they think you are a selfish person and don't care about anyone.

I often get empathy and sympathy mixed up. I think I have it but have been told I don't really. My mom says I have it and so does my husband but he says not much and he still gives me a hard time for having empathy for our pumpkins that were rotting and it was three years ago when it happened. I have even been called selfish but I don't care anymore. I even ask my husband if he is alright when I see he is going "ow ow" and isn't that empathy?

This may be completely off the wall and it's only what I've observed from my job as much as my own experience, but as others have said a lot of people do confuse empathy with sympathy.

Sympathy is feeling bad for someone else in a particular situation but not necessarily identifying with that situation.

Empathy is understanding the feelings of someone else and identifying with a situation whether or not you have experienced it yourself.

Non-autistic people muddle those up all the time, so I'm not sure why they expect us to be perfect in interpreting them.

Also, what I've seen from work situations is...I can empathise with people who are and who are not autistic, but I find it more of a natural impulse when someone who is autistic is trying to explain what they need/want/are afraid of/etc. There are a few service users where I work who I have had long conversations with about problems they're having and they trust me although they don't know I am also "one of them" as it were. Because I understand things a little from their perspective, I'm better at handling their problems than any of my colleagues are.

Now the question is, how many people who have trouble empathising (not sympathising) with non-autistic people have the same trouble empathising with people on this board or in other autistic forums about things they're going through?

Non-autistic people are sometimes unreasonable in their expectations of us. Quite often they can't/refuse to empathise with the effort we're putting in to daily life and make demands that we adhere to their interpretations instead of listening to ours too. We're expected to empathise with their situations or else we;re wrong/cruel/cold hearted/soulless etc. However for the most part what they show us is "SYMPATHY", not empathy.

They on the other hand are probably capable of empathising with other non-autistic people, because they understand a little better the way that person sees the world.

It's another cross communication issue, but as ever we're on the fall side of the equation.

i know. who needs it? Once when i was a kid i saw my pet cat steven got run over. I did not understand the situation and asked by parents if steven had sustained damage to its exterior? she said steven was dead. to which i replyed that is most unfortunate, we now need a new cat. later when she thought i couldnt hear my mom commented to my father "our kid is a f****** robot" but its not that i dont feel anything i just express it in a diffrent way. NTs are so wierd.