Scandal-scarred former Rep. Aaron Schock has come out as gay — admitting it has left him disowned by his deeply religious family who want him to go through conversion therapy.

“I am gay,” wrote the 38-year-old ex-Illinois pol who resigned from Congress five years ago amid claims he misused government and campaign funds, with federal charges only dropped last year.

“For those who know me and for many who only know of me, this will come as no surprise,” admitted Schock, who noted there was plenty of “speculation” while he was in office.

“In many ways I regret the time wasted in not having done so sooner,” he said. “Life is better with nothing to fear or hide.”

Schock made his public declaration in a heartfelt, 2,097-word missive that attacked the “array of false charges” and “years-long struggle to clear my name.”

It showed he was still smarting over the claim that he misused money to decorate his office with a “Downton Abbey” theme — “a show I’d never even heard of, and still haven’t seen,” he insisted.

Schock wrote of how being brought up in the Apostolic Christian Church left him initially trying to deny his sexuality — then being disowned by his family once finally out.

“I understood that the teachings of my upbringing were pretty clear on the matter,” he said of being gay, saying he avoided thinking about it.

Once in office, he says, he “assumed that revealing myself as their gay congressman would not go over well.”

“I also, in retrospect, realize that I was just looking for more excuses to buy time and avoid being the person I’ve always been,” he admitted.

The probe into his finances also included “prying” into his personal life, he says, quipping, “Unfortunately for prosecutors, the most sensational thing they learned about my personal life was that I didn’t have much of one.”

When he was finally ready to confide in his family last Easter, photographs that emerged of him shirtless with other men at the Coachella festival “made clear” that he was gay, he wrote.

When he spoke to his mother, “she told me to turn around and go back to LA. I wasn’t welcome at home for Easter,” he wrote.

“What I had to share was unwelcome news to every single person in my family, out of the blue in some cases, and was met with sadness, disappointment, and unsympathetic citations to Scripture,” he said.

“It hurt to hear all this, to say the least. What I had feared from many of them had come to pass,” he said, saying he knows some might “never come around.”

“I still get occasional emails trying to sell me on conversion therapy,” he said of his family — while sharing hope after his mother said she would like to meet “anyone special” in his life.

While defending himself against all the charges made against him, Schock admitted to one clear regret — being against gay marriage while in office.

“I can live openly now as a gay man because of the extraordinary, brave people who had the courage to fight for our rights when I did not,” he wrote.