It did me too, but that didn't make me like it any less. I played the original on and off for months, perhaps years, before stumbling upon or suddenly realizing the solution to some puzzle that had me stuck - which would often seem obvious and logical afterward. Then, I would go on to the next puzzle and repeat the cycle. Possibly it was hard because I started young. I did wait many years before consulting walkthroughs for the original, which helped with reaching Selenitic Age and Atrus at Kveer. I was disappointed having to be led by the hand, but very glad to see the remainder of the game's story. By the way, I played through most of the Ages in Myst before even finding the imaging room near the docks. Somehow I didn't know you could even walk to that end of the dock, and the door was also easy for me to overlook.
I made it through Riven mostly on my own, until a couple of end-game puzzles in which small misunderstandings led to mistakes. My main difficulty with the first two games of the series was navigation - it's hard to judge 3D spatial relationships from a collection of sometimes disjointed 2D snapshots, and it's not always easy to tell which parts of the screen are available for movement. I don't know if that might have affected you as well. Unfortunately, many of the puzzles in Riven relied on the relative positions of the islands and objects upon them.
Three more games and a few walkthroughs later, I did manage to solve Kadish's Path of the Shell puzzle all on my own after many tries, which felt like quite an accomplishment. It turns out I was even missing some of the clues to that puzzle, because I hadn't fully solved Kadish's Ages (that required more walkthroughs). I didn't really need the missing clues, because a handful of hints and a couple of critical directions got me on the right path (pun intended).
Ultimately, Myst V: End of Ages was the only game in the series that I played from start to finish with no hints. I had to, because it was my last chance. Sadly, the franchise has ended, with no new games in sight. I would say - don't feel bad about using the walkthroughs, because it won't really hurt the experience unless you overdo it. I usually just read a sentence or two in each walkthrough for a nudge, and then tried to figure out the rest.
