One year into PhD, feeling lost and inadequate, Help! I'm 22, and I'm one year into my PhD in History. I immediately started my PhD after finishing my master's, working with the same supervisor. Throughout the years, I've started to become more and more anxious when it came to writing essays and doing research. I hated working on my master's thesis, but I nonetheless grabbed the opportunity to start a PhD, because I convinced myself that it was something that I would be good at, I wanted to overcome my anxiety and challenge myself mentally, and the stipend is very decent. Now I'm one year into my PhD, and I'm constantly anxious and depressed. I feel like I've accomplished nothing, I have huge problems concentrating. My head feels so scrambled right now, that I can barely figure out my research questions and key thesis. Whenever I read articles on my topic, I feel like I can barely manage the information. I feel stupid and totally inadequate. Communicating with my supervisor is horrible, since I go mute from anxiety mid-conversation. 

I feel trapped in my PhD. I feel horrible, but I also feel like I can't quit, because I would disappoint so many people and regret it for the rest of my life. 

Any advice on coping with these issues, and getting back on track? Any particular advice on how to start delineating a research project? Am I already in a hopeless situation, or can I still 'save' my PhD? 

Edit : My university doesn't offer counseling for PhD students, but I have been seeing a shrink for the past year. I don't know if I'm improving or not.
This is the reason you gave for pursuing a PhD:


   I hated working on my master's thesis, but I nonetheless grabbed the opportunity to start a PhD, because I convinced myself that it was something that I would be good at, I wanted to overcome my anxiety and challenge myself mentally, and the stipend is very decent.


You don't say that you were anxious about writing the thesis, you say that you hated it, which sounds to me like you simply don't like doing academic research. But that is the whole point of a PhD. Furthermore, the only career a PhD in history really prepares you for is research and teaching, and you don't say anything about your feelings about teaching. 

So it sounds like you enrolled because of extraneous expectations from both yourself and others. Getting a PhD is not a merit badge, it's very specific training for a very specific purpose. There are plenty of other ways to show that you are smart. And "losing" one year is no big deal, especially when compared to spending even more time going down what might well not be the right path for you.