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Welcome and congrats on taking the necessary steps toward personal responsibility, and also for taking the time to ask questions & investigate before diving in.

That said, I'm going to separate from the pack a bit. Given your experience, I say get the .22 and spend as much time at the range as you can. Learn how to stand, hold the gun, fire the gun, and fire follow-up shots without the noise & recoil. Also hang out around the firing line without a gun to acclimate yourself to the noise. Someone is bound to show up with a hand canon that will startle at first, but you'll get used to it & eventually come to like it.

After you've spent a while at the range and are more comfortable around the environment, try some rentals in larger calibers. Preferably something that was made within the last decade. There is a world of difference between a full size 9mm polymer frame modern pistol and a ww2 era pocket .380. Example - my full size Smith & Wesson m&p .40 with 185g bullets is a much softer shot than my Beretta Nano 9mm and my full size gen3 Glock 17 in 9mm. My buddy's all metal Sig .45 shoots softer than my m&p. For some reason, ladies seem to get steered toward smaller guns that are harder to shoot & that's just plain wrong as you've already experienced.

Somewhere in this process you should look into various shooting classes and/or groups. Several ranges offer Learn to Shoot, Ladies Night, Girl With A Gun, etc. This will get you more familiar and give you more trigger time with whatever gun you ultimately decide on.

Once you get more comfortable with all of this, start looking into getting your chl. You can carry in your vehicle and at home (and if you own your own business, at work) until you get your license. So there's really no need to rush this. Since you will probably have to unlearn and recondition yourself, I'd say take your time and create a more positive experience for yourself.

Good luck & keep us posted. This is a very newbie-friendly forum, so please stop by often.