Intense Fear Of Intimacy

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starting about 3 years ago, i started to develop a very strong subconscious fear of relationships and general intimacy

there was a girl in my life who would occasionally give off very clear signals of interest but i would deflect them because i was afraid of what people might think if they saw us together, and yet at the same time i would get incredibly jealous and depressed when i saw her with other guys

if i'm crushing on a girl this fear will start to physically effect me, i choke up when i see them, sometimes get tremors and often have to vomit or dry heave if it gets particularly intense - it's like where people usually get butterflies in their stomach, i just get this horrible onset of dread and the immediate urge to escape

these physical symptoms are a very large part of why i pathologically avoided the aforementioned girl for so long. most times i actually met up with her in real life i would have to overcome a ridiculous amount of nerves to avoid having to go puke (and most times i failed)

does anyone at all have any advice? i've been considering therapy but i don't really know how to go about it (and i haven't had a crush in over a year so there's no way to really measure if i'm progressing)
any recommended reading would be greatly appreciated