You know, the funny thing Machka is that I am the opposite - Steep, short hills I can do. The longer, more gradual ones are what kill me. It's all the mentality I suppose, and I attribute being young to being able to do short steep spurts easily. It probably doesn't help either that I went from an aluminum bike with a compact to a carbon bike with a full double, the full double making it harder. However I have learned to adapt. Granted I may have to work harder than someone on a compact, but it is manageable. I climbed Haleakala (or rather, attempted to...my thread about it is somewhere on the Road Cycling subforum here) on a triple aluminum rental last week, and have to agree that it's all mental. Being able to see all the switchbacks that I had to go up all at once really killed it for me.

For me the only scary things that have happened to me was 1.) feeling light headed while pedaling really hard as I was nearing the top of a long but steep hill (overexertion I suppose) and then 2.) Stopping, but when I looked down at the ground the road seemed to stretch and keep moving away from me (also overexertion I guess).

I'm sure you are doing fine, and that you definitely are making progress. There are most likely hills that you once thought were impossible, and are now you think "eh, it's not so bad after all!". At least that's how it is for me. There is a road around where I live called Ridge Road, and it is a stairstep kind of road, with false flats. I have been told "when you think you're done, you're not". At first I didn't like it because of that, but now Ridge isn't so bad, and is easily doable for me.

Rock on!