Schitt's Creek's Dan Levy sat down with Bustle for a print and video interview last week in which he talked about the paralyzing anxiety that kept him from coming out for a long time.

Said Levy: “I think that came from a deep-rooted fear of knowing that I was gay and not being able to be free. By the time I got to high school, when your brain is starting to catch up to your physical impulses, it led to a very confusing time. Because on the one hand, you are now being introduced to things like self-awareness and anxiety. At the same time, you're becoming more and more savvy when it comes to hiding it.”

“I was starting to develop a sense of confidence by way of being able to entertain people,” Levy explained. “It was like a decoy version of myself that I was putting out there to not have to live with the reality that when the bullying was happening — if someone was calling me a faggot or whatever it was — they were speaking the truth. Your sense of self gets chipped away. You lose sight of your own value.”

Levy said his list of fears over what would happen if he came out was endless: “Fear of being ridiculed. Fear of being othered. Fear of exposing something that I think a lot of high school students at the time didn't have the tools to process properly, to make it comfortable for me.”

Levy said his mother invited him to come out, over lunch. More in the full interview, and a video interview below.