Activist tries to break cycle of gay teen suicide

"Why did God create me this way?"

That's what Mitchell Gold asked himself as a teenager in the mid-1960s as he hid his homosexuality from family and friends. The better he got at the hiding game on the outside, the more torn up he became on the inside.

What he called "the black cloud" swallowed him up. And he found himself thinking of ways to kill himself -- from overdosing on sleeping pills to driving off a cliff.

Gold felt completely alone, but the sad truth is that countless other gay and lesbian teens were feeling just as painfully isolated. Unlike Gold, many gay and lesbian teens of his generation didn't make it. Many gay teens are still not making it. And this tragic pattern won't change unless all of us -- gay and heterosexual alike -- help break the cycle.

hat's the latest message of the once self-hating gay teen who grew up to become the successful co-founder of the Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams furniture company and an innovative gay-rights activist.

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