I would say that I am generally confident and extroverted in person, but leaving comments on Less Wrong in contrast often left me feeling very exposed. The comment would just sit there, awaiting judgement and I would find myself worrying about hypothetical reactions and possible interpretations. I realize that in person I feel comfortable relying on body language and other cues to see if my comments are accepted. I was missing these cues on Less Wrong so for a long time I felt that LW was cold, harsh and unwelcoming.

I would compose comments and then hesitate to post them. When you are speaking, a bit of error and nonsense 'fluff' is expected, whereas in writing a sloppy thought just keeps on sitting there. While writing it is expected you've 'thought out' your response but actually in practice I couldn't spend an unlimited amount of time composing a comment. For over a year, I would limit the amount of time I spent per comment and I shelved 4 out 5. Interestingly, the ones I sent weren't my 'best' ones but the just the ones I wrote when I was feeling especially extroverted and imperturbable. Perhaps dozens of times over a period of a few months, I overestimated how extroverted and imperturbable I felt and would post a comment only to experience immediate, crushing anxiety about my comment. I immediately deleted them, and (I believe correctly) rationalized that if anyone knew how miserable I felt they would forgive the deletion.

Another, simultaneous factor was the exposure to new ideas, some of which seemed to have a potentially dangerous aspect, either socially or technologically. I began to imagine what the world would look like if AI had already been developed, and what might be the role of LW in that case, and a component of my brain (not the whole thing) became paranoid and gave me panic attacks. I handled this by simply never touching certain topics, and I now include this in a broader repertoire of 'useful boundaries' that I set so that my experience with LW is for the most part positive and productive.

Other boundaries I have are limiting time on Less Wrong to 'positive commenting time' (that is, times not in competition with other things I should be doing and not for too long or too intensely) and I generally don't post a comment if I expect it'll make me feel bad for any reason (it's just not worth it). I'm better now at judging how I'll feel and shrugging off the negative feelings if I do misjudge. Finally, my overall impression is that LW has become much friendlier, so I think there have been changes all around and I'm not sure how to measure them independently.