I used to have extreme social anxiety but I almost completely cured it. It did take me about 3 years or so.

I hope you know that social anxiety is curable, or at least you can make it much more manageable. Improving your social skills and dealing with people is a skill and art that is as old as civilization. But lately we've given people with inadequate social skills a name: people with Social Phobia/SAD.

I belief your best bet at treating SAD is doing self-help and also do CBT therapy. Using these together can get you good results.

Overcoming SAD is all about learning new social skills step by step, increasing your confidence in the process. You should gradually expose yourself to the things you fear step by step, going from things you fear the least to things you fear the most. This can take 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, or even 3 to 5 years. It's different for every single person.

When you try new social things, you are going to make mistakes and embarrass yourself sometimes. But just keep learning from your mistakes and you'll get there. Don't let setbacks pull you down again. Don't say "this is just who I am; this is how I was born". That's just not true. Most likely you have missed opportunities of growing socially because of some fears that were caused by bad social experiences in the past. But to overcome SAD you must confront these fears and change your thought-patterns.

Well good luck and if you have questions plz ask.