Fort what it's worth, I had the exact same experience you did when I started writing SIMD code explicitly with intrinsics.
I avoided it for a long time because, well, it was so damn ugly and verbose to do simple things. However, in actual practice it's not nearly as painful as it looks, and you get used to it quickly.
I avoided it for a long time because, well, it was so damn ugly and verbose to do simple things. However, in actual practice it's not nearly as painful as it looks, and you get used to it quickly.