Merlin,
I couldn’t agree more with crazyman. It is a learnable skill and view it as such. But you need to be pretty crisp on your algebra skills because algebra is the motor that drives it. The theories in calculus are pretty fundamental and pretty easy to grasp. You’ll learn 3 basic concepts in Calculus I- the limit, differentiation and integration. When you begin to see how they work and what they do, it is powerful. Don’t let anything scare you off, especially what other people say.
Most of the people talking about how horrendous calculus is are the same people who don’t do any homework or blow off class and try to cram the night before the exam and wonder why they walk out of there with 30s on their tests. Mathematics is a language, and just as you wouldn’t try to learn French overnight, you cannot learn Calculus, Trig, Algebra, etc. over night. It takes repetition, constant drilling and then more. Make it second nature and you’ll do just fine.