Don't you need to be able to understand someone's feelings to sympathize with them?
And you're acting like there's only one answer because you happen to like it a lot and because it happens to click with how you think. The field of Psych, being a Speculative Science, is constantly changing. To not even accept that what you believe could be wrong the next day with further evidence is foolish. The DSM is being constantly revised as new ideas flood in.
To restate, I have a stronger lean toward what I quoted myself saying from my own disorder, which is not psychopathy or sociopathy. The theory simply makes more sense to me than this "switch" notion currently does, even after reading those articles, but that could arguably be me projecting.
What does being dead to you entail? 
Hmm. If you had never lost someone in your life, and your friend told you their father died, I don't think you would need to necessarily understand loss to the same degree they are experiencing to sympathize with them. To empathize and truly feel it yourself, maybe - but not sympathize.
It's like responding "Oh shit, that must suck," rather than, "Oh man, I know what that feels like." Both are sympathy.
It is a defense mechanism... i said this myself in a previous thread... It is THE defense mechanism of sociopaths...
I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet. I will not argue with morons on the internet.
I just need to keep writing this until I internalize it and realize some people are simply incapable of understanding the world in the same capacity that I am. You can't help it, you're a moron, you just don't know any better...
by Daddy
I didn't realize you were so sensitive.
I was just looking to have it broke down into layman's terms.
I will ask Thrill or Turncoat next time. They won't get all sensitive on me. lol
I guess I'd have to sympathize with how he feels about not being able to live any more, and then feel sad for the sadness he would feel in that situation.
I guess, I could feel sad becasue he's gone and that means a future won't have him, and that might be less fun or less secure, but I think that would be more feeling bad for myself then him.
No, someone can tell me they're sad and I can just say: There there, it will get better.
It doesn't mean I have to internalize those emotions of feel them myself.
Empathy would be actually feeling them and taking them on yourself.
It could be argued that sympathy without empathy is fake and empathy without sympathy is callous