Social Awkwardness

I am far more socially awkward than most people realize. There are a number of reasons for this but I happened to think of one just now while flipping around in bed not falling asleep.

I was fairly shy as a child. Not very shy, but I never raised my hand and didn't usually speak unless spoken to. At some point, I think around the beginning of high school, I began to view my shyness as a weakness of character and a lack of control rather than accept it as the natural and probably genetically influenced personality trait that it was. So I decided to do something about it. This produced a less shy Andy but with a couple peculiarities. Rather than being naturally effusive and gregarious, I tend to speak out in spurts, like my mind suddenly notices I'm being shy and turns something on and my mouth goes off. The second thing is that for some reason I felt compelled to compensate for the shyness by being louder.

I wonder if there is any way I can fix this or if I should even bother trying.