I have been diagnosed with PTSD and Avoidant Personality Disorder though I think me being avoidant was a side effect of having PTSD. Anyways, I am a business major and really had to work on being less avoidant so that I could succeed in the business world. I have received many helpful tips and have tried lots of different things. Here is what worked for me:

1. People's favorite topic is THEMSELVES, so when starting a conversation, I would ask them a non threatening personal question like how their kids were doing if they had kids, or how their animals are, how their job was going etc. Once I can get someone talking, that lets me off the hook. People so much love to talk about themselves that all you have to do is smile and nod once in a while and insert a comment here and there. They then walk away thinking you are the greatest person ever because they got to talk about themselves and you cared enough to listen to them. It works like a charm !! I benefited from this because they pretty much did all of the talking and all I had to do was listen and insert a small comment every now and then. This got me more used to people and eventually I found it easier to converse with others. Now people can not shut me up LOL!!!!!

2. I do volunteer work. I have worked with animals and at the soup kitchens. Volunteering is a fantastic way to be less avoidant. First, it is not a paid job, so at least you have the comfort of knowing that if you freak or can not do it one particular day, you will not be fired and it is a good trial job to get a paid job. You get to mess up there and it will not too much matter LOL!! Secondly, volunteering gives you a common ground with others around you. If volunteering with animals, most likely animal lovers will come over and want to see the animal and now you both share a common bond and can talk about how much you love animals, or maybe the story behind the animal that you are caring for. It is much less threatening.

3. Once I got used to being around people and developed some social skills through my volunteering, I joined a church community group where I knew they would accept me no matter what. I was then able after a while to converse with a large group of people and be comfortable. I realize that not all are religious, so my advice in that case is to join a live support group of some kind that you feel would accept you no matter what.

I hope I was able to give you some tips that you could use and be of help. I have grown tremendously within the last year by doing what I have listed. I went from having ZERO friends and very avoidant, to now comfortably giving presentations to large crowds and being reasonably comfortable doing so.