A realisation about self-image and social anxiety

Hi, 

I think I just realised something about my struggle with self-image and how my social anxiety makes it so much harder.

I have really low self-esteem and have a hard time seeing good traits in myself. I also have social anxiety and get really nervous when interacting with people. In my desperation to make a good impression and be accepted I often adapt an overly positive and cheery personality. It often works for first impressions, but it's no good because it sets me up to fail. People often describe me as a happy and carefree person and it's crushing me because on the inside I'm feeling sad and stressed out - the complete opposite! 

It makes me feel fake, like I'm playing a role that isn't real. And it's impossible to keep the charade up, because when I feel more comfortable and less anxious it ironically leads to comments like "What's wrong? Why are you so boring/sad today?" - not exactly what my already low self-esteem needs to hear: that my real personality sucks haha 🙈

I think I'm realising that these two perceptions of me are both a bit wrong. My negative self-image isn't really that bad and the cheery persona isn't completely fake. But they are distorted in opposite directions and that makes the gap between them so much bigger and harder to reconcile. 

This post became quite long and if you got this far - thank you so much for listening! 💕 It's going to be difficult to fix, to improve on my self-image while calming down my anxious behaviour. But I think that identifying it is a good start. What do you think? Any tips or thoughts?