One thing that will really help with the recall is starting a dream journal. Whether it is one that's online here, or in a book you keep by your bed (or even a tape recorder if that helps you more). Consciously recording everything you remember from a dream will help you concentrate on remembering more details. Try to highlight or take note of things that seemed strange in the dream, and I think soon you'll find your recall gets better and better.

As far as the stress, I think that LDing might actually help you. I have a set of recurring nightmares, and the one time I've been lucid during one I was able to change the dream to make it more pleasant. You can use LDing as a tool to help you confront some of those bad dreams, which I think is a really powerful aspect of lucid dreaming. I know it is scary at first because you can't control it as much, but remember that even minimal control will be better than just being helpless to your nightmares.

The people here are always happy to help. Particularly look for people with green names, they are selected by the staff because they are really helpful to new lucid dreamers!