When I was a teenager I would lock myself in the bathroom for

Beth Ditto once confessed with raw honesty: "When I was a teenager I would lock myself in the bathroom for hours, bouffanting my hair like Patty Duke and trying to recreate Barbra Streisand's flawless eyeliner, only to comb it all out and wash it all off before stepping out into the world a butchish bisexual teen." These words, though wrapped in humor and memory, shine like a mirror of the soul. They reveal the hidden rituals of identity, the private moments when the young wrestle with who they are, and who the world will allow them to be. It is a tale of both longing and suppression, of experimenting with beauty and then erasing it for fear of exposure.

The origin of this quote is rooted in Ditto’s adolescence in the American South, where gender roles and sexuality carried the heavy burden of expectation. In her sanctuary—the bathroom, a private temple of self-exploration—she practiced the arts of glamour, modeling herself after icons like Patty Duke and Barbra Streisand. These acts were not mere vanity but a search for belonging, for identity, for the power of expression. And yet, upon stepping into the world, she washed away her efforts, donning instead the armor of a butchish bisexual teen, unwilling or unable to show the vulnerable face she had painted in solitude.

Her experience reflects a timeless struggle: the tension between the public self and the private self. Across history, countless souls have hidden their truest expressions for fear of ridicule, rejection, or violence. Consider the poet Sappho, whose verses of love for women survived only in fragments, many destroyed by those who could not bear her truth. In private, she sang with passion; in public, her voice was nearly silenced. Ditto’s story echoes this eternal divide—the secret rehearsals of authenticity, erased before the eyes of a judging world.

This tale also speaks to the power of icons. By invoking Streisand and Duke, Ditto shows how the young often borrow the faces and gestures of others as stepping stones toward their own identities. Heroes and idols become masks we try on, until we discover which features belong to us. It is not imitation but a form of apprenticeship. And yet, Ditto’s erasure of her experiments reveals the fear that comes when the outer image collides with the inner truth. Her struggle was not with eyeliner alone, but with the right to exist openly in her fullness.

But there is also strength in her words. Though she combed out the bouffant and scrubbed away the eyeliner, she did not erase herself. She carried within her the defiance, humor, and spirit that would one day make her a fearless artist and activist. The butchish bisexual teen who stepped out into the world bore the resilience to survive, to adapt, and ultimately to rise. This is the paradox of her memory: she denied herself in one way, but in another she declared herself boldly by refusing to fit into a false image of femininity.

For us, the lesson is clear: do not despise the hidden experiments of your youth. Even if they end in erasure, they shape the soul. The hours spent before a mirror, the drafts of unsent letters, the songs sung alone—these are not wasted. They are rehearsals of the spirit, preparing us for the day when we will no longer wash away what we have created. The world may force you to conceal, but the self you discover in secret will one day step into the light.

Therefore, children of tomorrow, take courage from Beth Ditto’s story. If you must live divided, know that your hidden self is still real, still shaping you. If you lock yourself away to experiment, to imagine, to create—honor that secret work, for it is sacred. And when the time comes, step into the world not washed clean of your essence, but clothed in it. For the eyeliner may be erased, the bouffant combed out, but the spirit that dared to dream them remains—and that spirit will one day lead you to freedom.