I had this when I did my first one. What helped me was to think about it differently. The situation you describe is what happens when you use your instinct and "fly the bars" - the pitch appears inverted. I switched it around and thought about it as if I was "flying the crosshairs" and imagined the centre of the cross was the nose of the plane. So then when I pulled back and the bars moved down - it made sense.
Don't know if that'll help you at all. You might not even understand what I mean. But I tried to explain it reasonably clearly