"dont worry kid, this ship can take 'em"

they blow me up every time, in literally 5 seconds. everytime.

srsly??

There used to be lots of threads like this one. The trick is to learn to use strafe and overdrive. I forgot if you had more than a single kind of weapon but also learn to know how the weapons you have work, like their effective shooting distance. Also understand how shields work and remember no ship can have shields covering their rear.

One hand on the keyboard, the other on the flight stick in this game!!!

My favourite dogfight weapon: Quad light. Why? It is so effective against shielded opponents.

Yeah they didn't make it easy, on the other hand once you get past this the rest of the game gets a lot easier.

Like Themken said, use strafing and use the overrides but most importantly keep maneuvering don't be a sitting duck.
When using the throttle override also take care by not going too fast as manuevering a speeding bullet is harder than maneuvering a butterfly so to speak.
Also because you're in space you don't nessecarily need to keep your nose pointed in the direction you're going, use this to keep your opponents under fire.
I don't remember if you get chaff in the Storm Petrel but if you have it you might want to use that too.

Ah yes, turning that flight assistance bs off helps a lot. Only then can you point the ship in another direction than you are heading.