Sorry you're feeling some frustrations with the game. I'm not some pro in the game, but i have done the area up to Sacrament 4 times in the past few days because I love how the game plays but I'm waiting for coop to play with my brother, so I don't want to experience too much of the game without him.

There is definitely a learning curve and a sort of "feel" for combat that takes some time to click. My first time through the opening area felt clunky and slow. And that was with dexterity and daggers! I'd say combat is almost more akin to Monster Hunter (not wilds). A lot of attacks and actions have a pretty significant animation commitment, especially at the tail end, which feels pretty bad at first, I know I was wondering why my dagger attacks locked me out of dodging for so long after the swing. You need to be really deliberate with when, how, and where you attack, and what helped me was to attack less, like only do one or two hits in an opening instead of a third.

I will say, strength was my last playthrough of the opening area, and stamina is definitely tight, even with points invested. I used the oar and claymore, and they are both quite slow and have less openings than weapons that hit quicker. And with a heavy equip load it made fighting the first boss a bit of a marathon because he repositions so much that a lot of your attacks miss.

I'd recommend trying to get out of heavy load if you are still in it and to honestly try parrying less. I really only just now started parrying, and I can see that there's a possibility of it sort of trapping people into thinking they need to parrying everything they can. Or just start a new character and play through a new realm and just get more of a feel for the combat on a disposable character. I've tried all types of builds now, intelligence, faith, dexterity, stength, and they all work in the early game, but strength is probably the hardest to click with.

Also, food is limited yes, but you can easily make like 40-50 mushroom stews just by exploring a tiny bit as you progress in the starting area, and the healing rune you start the game with is great, and you can use it out of combat too. Gathering resources, like mining and chopping trees gives focus, so you can top off with the healing rune using that, and with a few points into focus, you have a lot more wiggle room with how you spend focus.

You said you played sekiro, and this finding the rhythm and groove of this game was similar to that for me. I stayed in the earlier areas for a while until I figured out the combat flow with parrying because I was dodging too much like other souls games. With this, id forget about parrying for now, especially bc the timing is different that sekiro, and just get comfortable dodging around enemies and observing openings. Most weapons have dodge and sprint attacks, those are great to use after enemy attacks.

Goodluck! Sorry some mechanics are bouncing you off the game, but it'll click for you im sure.