“The Things That Go Unsaid” is a scene from “Breaking The Cycle”. It is a monologue that explores the themes of consent, coercion and sexual and psychological abuse through the eyes of a teenage girl in Spain in the early 2000s in a strong patriarchal society. Normalisation and misinformation lead this girl to endure different kinds of abuse in the hands of her first boyfriend, while remaining invisible in the eyes of her parents. 

“Breaking The Cycle” is a feminist autoethnographic play that deals with the oppression suffered by Spanish women during and after Franco’s dictatorship. It explores power dynamics in relationships and the oppression suffered by three women of three different generations of the same family. Susana drew from her own experience of sexual and psychological abuse and memories and stories of her mother’s and grandmother’s abuse. The cycle of abuse is passed on through generations and validated by the cultural context.