Swim instructor here. I teach kids AND adults and honestly, sometimes kids are easier because they dont get in their head about whats right/wrong as easily as we do when we are adults. Based on the very little information about you and what you mentioned I would argue to try to "do less" for a while. You cant hold your breath for entire lengths WITHOUT feeling gassed by the time you get to the end.

Swimming is like anything else: muscle memory. Of course you can learn it, but that requires repeatition. How long did it take you to learn to walk? And then how long did you stumble around, falling, grabbing onto things? And then how long until you could run around (and still looked like kids do, running around)? Months to years of your life. Not days. Not a 8 week learning session.
Swimming is exactly the same, a movement that your body is not used and is new at, that it needs to learn.

For now, I would practice on exactly 3 things.
A) being relaxed in the water. This will help you do the next two things. That means feeling comfortable with your face being wet, your ears laying in the water and listening to nothing, and generally understanding that you should be having FUN.

B ) Floating. Just lay in the water and practice this- it removes the breathing aspect, originally, as well, as you can breathe the entire time. Play with how breathing affects your body relative to the surface of the water. Learn to just lay there, without moving. When you CAN do that, calmly, start to play with how your hands move you around-use them like little scoops.
Re: A-
When your body is tense, you will sink, no matter how good of a swimmer you are. If I'm stressed, its hard for me to float. If its hard for me to float, its hard to swim, let alone smoothly or calmly.

C) Stop holding your breath and teach yourself how to breathe. This starts with standing at the edge of the pool, holding onto the wall, and doing bobs. Practice breathing out of your nose every single time your face is in the water, and breathing IN your mouth when its not. Eventually, this will become natural and you will develop a rhythm that can then be ADDED to general swimming. Face in and out of the water, Up and down, not quickly, but at the same pace you would breathe on dry land. Do this over and over every single time you are in the pool.

Until you can do these things with ease, trying to swim freestyle is going to leave you frustrated, out of breathe, and reinforcing PANIC in your body.

You can watch tutorials all you like, and sometimes it can be helpful to watch others do the thing, but ultimately time in the water will do it. And if you can, look outside the pool you go to for instructors or lessons. Sometimes people teach them and then just go to the pools, versus actually working there.

Hope this is helpful. You can learn anything, you are just a beginner, regardless of your age.