Dealing with Social Anxiety

I used to have a lot of social anxiety around my extended family. I found that pretending to play a character helped me a lot. I know it sounds weird but it's incredible how much it helped. It took away a lot of the fear of messing something up because I could just say "that wasn't me, that was [whatever character I was at the time]." This was something I learned from my therapist, it was sort of like a "fake it til you make it" idea. Hope this helps :)

with certain jobs i’ll have a “work personality” and it’s kind of like just playing a character of who you wish you could be. i’ve found that it makes work a lot more fun when i can actually interact and have a relationship with my coworkers. but it can be mentally exhausting and when i get home i need to be alone and not communicate with anyone for a while and just relax

I go through the same thing! I can't connect with people especially my co workers. They all hang out outside of work and I am too afraid to. I'm all awkward around people and I'm afraid it makes people uncomfortable around me.