Turrets and the like

Hi everyone,

I am really new to league, like really new. I started in October of 2015 and have had a fairly good time playing League so far. I am proudly in Bronze V (woo-hoo) and occasionally play a ranked game and have run into some frustrating things recently. I usually play mid or top, and about 7 minutes in to a game I traded and, unsurprisingly, died to a Victor (who, by my standards at least, was pretty good). He then proceeded to attack my turret, no surprise there, and by the time that I got back it was a 1/3 health (Our jg had recalled). This seemed really frustrating to me as often times when I die once I automatically lose the my lane and even if I try to farm under turret their jg will eventually gank and I am left with 1 turret down at 12 minutes. I have kept in mind that I am fairly new and there is probably some trick to preventing this in the future, but over-all I feel like mistakes are punished really aggressively and games don't allow a lot of room for error. If there are any tips you can give me I would greatly appreciate it, but all in all the main message here is that when I feel like deaths and mistakes are punished too harshly, making the game a "play safe or lose" scenario.

Thanks again!