Tell Me Who You Love, I'll Tell You Where It Hurt

They called me Maruko, after that Japanese cartoon character with big round eyes, a mischievous spirit, and a signature short bob haircut. The resemblance was uncanny.

They were not just the men in my life. Not just my father, uncles, or neighbors.

They were my friends.

My joy.

My exciting social life filled with laughter and attention. They teased me with love, pampered me with gifts and food.

I was the sun in every room I walked into.

I bloomed very early.

I cracked jokes and fired clever comebacks very young, when most kids could barely express a full thought.

You’d find me on hot July evenings in our small Algerian town, waiting for the siesta to end. Five o’clock was my hour. That’s when the heat cooled, the persianas opened, and the world woke up again. I’d grab my little stool and head outside, ready to soak in the life around me.

First stop: Ami Tahar’s stove repair shop. I’d sit with him and keep him company as he opened for the evening. We would talk for hours, not only with each other but with whoever walked in. Clients, neighbors, passersby. I would listen to stories, political opinions, town gossip. I asked so many questions that Amo Tahar would answer for a while before finally getting annoyed and kicking me out, asking me gently to go find someone else to bother with my questions.

So I would. I’d wander around, find my other friends. The neighborhood "eligible" bachelors, my older cousins, their friends. I found it completely normal to have friends in their twenties. I’d sit with them, listen, joke, argue. I loved them. They loved me.

My relationship with my father was just as special. I was his favorite. He took me everywhere: to the neighborhood plaza, the café, the stadium, his best friend’s tobacco store, and our favorite place, Le Salon de Thé that ironically had no tea, just the best ice cream in town.

I knew all of my father’s friends. They’d pull me into games of chich-bach and damas. I was smart, quick-witted. They loved challenging me, and I loved performing.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. I had that. I was raised by a village that loved me, laughed with me, and called me by my name.

But what they omit to say is that the village that raises you also shapes you. It teaches you who you are, and who you are allowed to be.

That the village that loves you also tells you when and how you deserve to be loved.

What they omit to say is that if that village turns its back on you, it's not the village you question, it's you...

L ´Exile

My first heartbreak wasn’t a boy.

It was my village turning quiet.

It happened suddenly, without a warning or a conversation

The games stopped. The laughter quieted. The Salon de Thé invitations disappeared.

My stool stayed in the corner, untouched.

It all vanished the minute my body started developing and the reality of being a woman could no longer be ignored.

My village was no place for women…

It all vanished because the very thing I was becoming was a taboo, a problem, a liability.

One day I was the golden child. The next, a woman that didn’t belong.

I was too young, I didn’t yet know to blame the patriarchy, I blamed myself instead

something about me was now wrong

Like in Inside Out, that was the moment my inner islands collapsed.

That’s when tall, tangled, electric threads began to weave themselves into my core,

invisible cords that started vibrating beneath everything I do.

The Belief

That shift didn’t just change how others treated me.

It changed how I saw myself.

Whispers, no need to scream.

They were quiet, but absolute.

They fused with my identity.

And like all internalized shame, they sounded like truth.

“My body is shameful, problematic, and unwanted”,

“I deserve to be abandoned”,

“I don’t deserve play, attention, or affection”,

“I am not enough”,

“I am not lovable”.

These didn’t become my truths because someone said them out loud.

They became my truths because I absorbed them in silence.

That’s the thing about limiting beliefs:

They are formed either through repetition, or by the sheer intensity of a single event

And once they’re formed, the brain becomes a corrupted researcher,

collecting only the data that confirms its hypothesis.

Your mind starts filtering reality through the lens of your wounds.

It begins searching for proof, and it always finds what it’s looking for.

Psychologists call this confirmation bias:

The tendency to notice only what aligns with what you already believe,

and to ignore what doesn’t.

So, if you believe you’re not lovable,

every moment of distance becomes proof.

Every rejection, confirmation.

Every silence, a verdict.

But it doesn’t stop at noticing.

You begin to choose relationships that validate your pain.

You subconsciously read the signs,

They are inconsistent,

they won’t choose you,

they’ll leave,

And something in you feels drawn to that.

Because it’s familiar.

Because it’s home.

This is what we call a trauma bond, and nothing bonds like trauma.

I first noticed I was doing this when I allowed myself to fall in love with a man I knew was leaving in six months.

From our first conversation, I sensed he would never choose me.

So, I stayed.

I let myself attach.

Because time after time he activated that wound, the wound of being walked out on…

It lit up something ancient in me.

It was painful.

But it was a pain I understood.

And on some level, I was addicted to it.

And once I saw it,

my entire dating history flashed before my eyes,

clearer than it had ever been.

I had been stuck in the same pattern for so long,

it was the only love story I knew.

Emotionally or physically unavailable men were my exclusive type

Often, I would leave first

before they get the chance to abandon me

I was constantly replaying the same script.

Hoping that this time I'd win

That this time, I wouldn’t be left

That this time, I'd be chosen…

But I never was...

Because whenever someone did feel available, consistent, and genuinely interested

Something in me panicked

My stomach would flip, and I'd feel like I was suffocating

I didn’t know it then,

but I was rejecting safety because it felt unfamiliar.

Because it didn’t match the version of love i learned I deserved

These beliefs don’t need daily reinforcement.

They live in your nervous system.

They live in your body.

They become the water your thoughts swim in, and organs drink from.

Of course, this is just one scenario. A modern life classic

but there are others I’ve seen again and again. In my own life, and in my clients’ lives.

People who are just trying to love with the maps they were given as children

With the beliefs they once formed:

The children who parented their parents now attracting chaotic partners who lean on them

→ I exist to care for others. My needs are selfish.

The kids of critical parents chasing partners they can never quite please

→ I'm unworthy, unless you say otherwise.

The emotionally starved, choosing distant, self-absorbed lovers

→ My feelings don't matter.

The performance-loved who had love withheld in imperfection, and learned affection comes with receipts

→ Love is transactional. I did my part, where's yours?

Teenagers shamed for expressing desires drawn to repressive and moralizing partners

→ I am inherently wrong, and I need a constant reminder of that.

This last one is painfully common in traditional cultures like mine.

The list goes on…

Beliefs formed to make sense of the trauma we lived.

Dr. Gabor Maté writes,

“Trauma is not what happens to you. It’s what happens inside you as a result of what happened.”

We often think trauma needs to be something extreme: abuse, violence, disaster.

But trauma isn’t defined by the event itself.

It’s defined by your internal experience.

What matters is not what happened, but how alone, unsafe, or unseen you felt when it did.

A moment can look insignificant from the outside: a forgotten birthday, a harsh tone, a bad joke...

But if it made you feel small, invisible, or like love was being withdrawn,

it can plant a belief that shapes your entire relational blueprint.

This is why so many people dismiss their own pain.

They think: “But nothing really bad happened to me.”

Yet they walk through life feeling unworthy, anxious, or starved for connection.

Trauma isn’t always loud.

Sometimes it’s quiet.

Sometimes it’s the silence that hurt the most.

I talk about this now and see my life for what it has been

All of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly

But this clarity is new.

It’s the fruit of deep, honest work I’ve done on myself.

Like an onion, I’m still peeling.

And as Stromae said:

“Quand y’en a plus, y’en a encore.”

When you think it’s done, there’s always more.

In my own healing, and now in the work I do with others, I've learned this:

Patterns can be unlearned.

But not before they are seen.

Not before they are understood.

You have to trace the map your village gave you before you can draw your own.

As for me,

The village that once exiled me is now gone.

Now, I build my own, with stools wide enough for the woman I am

steady enough for the girl I was.

Sometimes, when I sit very still

I can still feel her, the little girl...

somewhere inside, hiding.

Still loud, still hungry for life, still asking too many questions.

Still so unafraid to love and be loved

Now, I am building a village where she feels safe enough to come out and play

Safe enough to come out and stay….