as many others have said, leave the starter guild asap, join an "Active!!!" guild. as long as they are starting and finishing raids with regular/often frequency you should be fine.
above all, as I say to all our new recruits, dont get discouraged!!! we all cap at the same levels, we all have the same characters available to us,and they all cap at the same gear level.
while it may seem impossible to "catch up" you certainly can do so! at first it will seem hopeless but its not! you'll improve fast. that gear you start getting from raids will barely be usable at first but as you do more and more raids it will really start to pile up. you'll rank people up to a new gear rank and start seeing gear already waiting for you to equip on the newly ranked up character! it all takes time - key most important aspect of this game.
my wife started playing almost exactly 1 year ago this month. today she has 5 gear12 characters (smugglers!) and about half a dozen zetas trained. plus a night sister team, a empire/sith team, and shes about to start farming for Darth Revan. all completely free to play. she is now very competitive with even some of the older members of our guild...
so dont lose heart! keep logging in, do your dailys every day, join and participate as much as you can in everything!! you can and will get there!!!