Hey all, I joined this forum because I really wanted to talk about an incident I had. I'm quite ashamed of it though so I don't want to openly speak about it at my flight school because it is embarrassing and also an odd question.

I am currently an 80 hour Private Pilot and made a mistake on a recent flight. I took a longer cross country flight than usual (around 150 miles) a few weeks ago and about 3/4 into my flight home I ran into ceilings at around 2,800 ft. (I was cruising originally at 4,500 but had to keep requesting dropping alt with flight following because it kept coming down). Eventually I was handed off to the next station, but because I had to keep dropping altitude, I was unable to reach the station. So anyways, then I made the mistake. I kept lowering beneath the ceiling until I got to about 2,800 ft when I knew that I had to turn around. There was high terrain that I remembered from the way there so I knew it wasn't a good idea to keep going. So i got into IMC and made my 180. Problem was that when I made the 180, even at the same altitude I was at before below the clouds, I wasn't anymore, i was still in IMC. So what I ended up doing was putting in full throttle, and went above the clouds and was finally able to reach the station which gracefully worked with me and gave me some vectors around the weather as well as a nice pocket to drop through.

anyways that's the story but the real question I guess I have is, did I suffer a panic attack during all of this? When I started my turn with 0 vis I was pretty freaked out, heart was thumping, i felt kind of dizzy, and my head kept following the AI banking to the left. So I guess I am just trying to figure out whether it was just spacial disorientation, or I actually had a panic attack. I've never had one before, and once I got above the clouds again I was fine. I really just wanted to vent this for 2 reasons, #1 because I know I should have diverted sooner and the whole incident really freaked me out even though no graveyard spin or anything was entered, and #2 If it actually was a panic attack or something, it would discourage me from doing more training because I don't want to be putting myself or a passenger in danger if that were to happen again. I was completely calm over the radio, etc. but I've never had my heart thump that hard before.

I don't really want to fly again until I get more instrument training.