Former Teen Wolf actor Charlie Carver has opened up to his fans on Instagram today afterdecidingto share a few details about his sexuality.

While he says he 'hadnt really ever been in', Charlie wanted to let fans know that he's gay to be the person he says he needed when he was younger andposted a series of inspiring Instagram posts to tell his story.

Posting in five parts, he talks about how an Instagram quote referencing a proverb talking about being yourself was the thing that made him want to speak openly about who he is.

While he's happy and comfortable in his sexuality now, he explains that there was a "painful gestation marked by feelings of despair and alienation, ending in a climax of saying three words out loud: 'I am gay'".

"They rang true, and I hated myself for them," he continues."I was twelve. It would take me a few years before I could repeat them to anyone else, in the meantime turning the phrase over and over in my mouth until I felt comfortable and sure enough to let the words pour out again, this time to my family

Charlie goes on to explain that acting professionally actually made his relationship with his sexuality more complicated as he was initially concerned coming out might limit roles he was offered.

“At nineteen, I started working in Hollywood. It was a dream come true,” he says. “Coupled with the overwhelming sense of excitement was an equally overwhelming feeling of dread -I would ‘have to’ bisect myself into two halves, a public and private persona, the former vigilantly monitored, censored, and sterilized of anything that could reveal how I self-identified in the latter.”

Ultimately though, he wanted to live up to that proverb about being yourself for the benefit of othersand adds:“Let the record show this- I self-identify as gay.Does that really matter anymore? As a young man, I needed a young man in Hollywood to say that -and without being a d*ck about it, I owe it to myself, more than anything, to be who I needed when I was younger."

Concluding things, he squeezed in a little shoutout to his twin brother Max (you might remember them from one of their first jobs on Desperate Housewives) and said:“And let the record show my twin brother is just as cool for being straight.”

Naturally Max is just as proud of Charlie and had this to say about the whole thing:

Four for you Charlie, FOUR FOR YOU.

- By Linds Foley.