[feelix]

>- I am REALLY bad at algorithm problems and experience serious performance anxiety.

For me this is the key sentence here.

Don't worry about feeling like you had to work harder than everybody else during college, that is called imposter syndrome and it's normal.

As for the performance anxiety on technical stuff, I had the same thing. I was even barred from being allowed into programming courses, that I would have to pay a lot of money for, because I failed the aptitude test. I went back in days later and I demanded to retake it after failing and was allowed, and did even worse on the same test.

So I had crippling self doubt. Then given a few years to work on my own stuff, I taught myself C and became the most prolific developer (my work is linked to in other comments I've made on HN if you want to check it) I know churning out loads of awesome software. I even got into kernel hacking in C and stuff. I still don't know if I'm inherently clever or even a good programmer, but I do know I've achieved good results. I think if you're passionate about it you'll find a way to create what is important to you, even if it's very technical.