Star Trek got it wrong?

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There's an episode of the original Star Trek titled "The Empath". It's about an alien woman who is so sensitive to the feelings of others that she feels them as if they were her own. Recently I joined a forum "Aspies and their partners". I'm pretty sure I have mild Asperger's Syndrome and I was looking for something that would help me and my husband figure out how to communicate better. We don't just have the usual male vs. female communication issues but also, we are discovering, a lot of Aspie vs Neurotypical ("normal") communication issues. There were a couple of posts that were incredibly helpful in describing Aspie thought processes vs. neurotypical thought processes with people who are in a relationship and how they compensate for their differences. I had commented that my husband feels something is "off" when I respond logically when he expects an emotional response and that I understand his emotional responses intellectually but I don't "feel" them. So one neurotypical person left the comment that based on what her counselor had told her the other day, that I had empathy but not sympathy. That puzzled me a bit so I went and looked up the definitions of both words. Merriam-Webster definition of sympathy: the act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings or interests of another b : the feeling or mental state brought about by such sensitivity - have sympathy for the poor. Merriam-Webster's definition of empathy: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. Looks like, based on the dictionary definition of empathy, Star Trek should have called their alien something other than an empath. lol So here is where I'm going with this, because I'm on a journey of exploration, for those of you who choose to answer. When you deal with somebody, a friend, loved one, somebody you care about basically, who is very emotional about something, do you actually share their emotions with them? Or do you just sort of intellectually understand their emotions because you have felt similar emotions yourself? PS If your answer is "none of the above", could you just please delete me as you're probably a serial killer. Just kidding...