Hi @Cantbelieveit, @Anna_Moderator knows as she too is a stroke survivor who now works for the Stroke Association, and will have been through the herself at that time.
Being on here, reading through others post can actually help greatly with you coming to terms with it. Just learning more about it here will help, the side effects, the main one being brain fatigue. For that you will need to learn your limits and take frequent breaks to reduce or avoid it. And another read good for you on here is @Seddso 's Panic checklist (see the link below) and subsequent replies to it 
You did right coming on here, talking it through with fellow survivors should relieve much of your anxiety to calm yourself down. So keep talking and share it with your family too if you like. This site not only for the survivors, carers/loved ones are welcome here too. They too are stroke survivors and need advice from their perspective, so there are many on here to share that perspective such as @ManjiB and @Bobbi’s wife @HHilary who are carersof their loved ones.
You may also be interested in finding a stroke support group local to you to attend. And you can find that here: Support groups in your area | Stroke Association. Click on the blue test and If you scroll down that page a touch there is a search box where you can type in your post code and it will list everything there is from closest to you and radiating outwards to furthest. I myself attend an aphasia group once a month and I’ve loved it since the day I joined. I lost all my self-consciousness in my speech, it raised my confidence enormously to babble on and on until my speech came right right again. Ok, it still needs some fine tuning but I’m reasonably understandable 
Such groups can boost the confidence in yourself and encourage you, well worth giving them a try if you can 
Lorraine