A 489-day hunger strike, an international campaign and pressure from Washington helped me regain my freedom on May 30, 2015. I felt more solidarity from strangers than I did from some of my own blood relatives.

A few months after my release, my uncle was severely injured in a suspected terrorist attack in Sinai, where he was stationed. My mother implored me to offer sympathy. I refused to call. I almost felt a sense of justice.

Two years later, Uncle Anas was still unable to walk. It had been nearly a year since he had surgery for a spinal fracture he sustained as a result of the attack and his muscles had not recovered. Medical exams revealed a fatal diagnosis: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., a degenerative illness.

I still could not bring myself to call my uncle, but as I watched my mother grieve, I began to rethink. I came to realize that in my self-righteous pursuit of justice, I had committed injustice against myself and my loved ones. My resentment blinded me to what was truly important: my empathy and humanity. I had dehumanized one of my most beloved, just as he had dehumanized me. I was angry at him for abandoning me while I was in prison, yet when he became a prisoner of his own body, I was ready to abandon him.

Last summer, I made peace with my uncle. It was the most difficult experience I have had since I left prison. I called him on the first day of Eid, and I could hear the slightly panicked excitement in his voice as we exchanged greetings. He spoke faster than usual, as if trying to make up for lost time. The weight of the resentment I carried vanished as soon as the conversation turned to kids, marriage, health and the famous feast that my aunt makes every Eid. As I ended our five years of silence, I felt the same sensation of freedom I had experienced when I was released. Soon after, my mom told me that the call had done wonders for his morale and that he had accompanied her on a visit to my father, who remains in prison.

My father served in the Morsi government; I was imprisoned for my activism; my uncle was a police officer under successive regimes; many other family members were army generals or politicians under the government of the former president, Hosni Mubarak. Is my family unique? In many ways, not at all. Most Egyptian families are similarly split across the country’s political divides.

With rampant state violence and the absence of any semblance of justice, Egyptian society is beyond polarized — it is broken. The targeting and dehumanization has extended beyond Islamists. Now anyone who dares to challenge the status quo is demonized. Families remain strained, political differences seem existential, dinner tables still have empty seats. Many weddings, birthdays and funerals are missed because of imprisonment, exile or exclusion. The hate, anger and vengeance have somehow overrun human decency.