Strange situation. I frequently land my drone at a lower elevation than when I started, and I have not had the landing problem you have experienced. I have also taken off and landed in different places (Sometimes controlling the drone from a vehicle traveling between two points) and have not had that issue either.
You didn't mention in your comment whether the drone attempted "auto land" due to the low battery.
If you don't remember this happening, I suspect that your drone was attempted to "auto land" due to low battery. When this happens, your drone is programmed to ascend to a "safe height" before returning to the landing area. By default the height is 100ft or 30m. In pushing down on the stick, you are preventing the drone from ascending...the AI program for landing is basically fighting you. Usually in this situation, you can simply disengage the "auto land" feature by clicking on the "x" on the touch screen when it comes up. Of course...as a rookie pilot trying to land... You probably had your eyes on the drone and not the controller. You may not even have heard the audio warning, indicating that auto landing had been activated.
When I was a "rookie" pilot, I had a similar thing happen, and I was under a tree. I DID NOT want the drone to ascend! In my situation, after a few seconds of pushing down on the stick (Which seemed like hours) Auto land disengaged, and given how close I was to the ground, I made a fairly hard landing in my attempt to bring it down. It was quite scary...as the drone really fought me in regards to altitude. It wasn't until after the fact that I even pieced together what had happened. I may have heard the "audio warning" about the low batter, and Auto landing engaged, but I don't think I fully knew (even though I had read about it) what would happen. I'm not sure if "auto land" is what happened given the brief synopsis you offered, and the fact you had to keep fighting the controls, but I think it is at least plausible.
In addition to the other tips offered here...I typically try to leave about 4 minutes or on my battery when I'm landing. I've had situations where I was attempting to land and a huge gust of wind came and made landing dangerous. Another time, I was coming in for a landing...and a couple of dogs came running down the beach and tried to attack my drone. The owner didn't have any interest in controlling them, I'm not even sure I could have communicated with the owner anyway, as I was in another country. It was easier for me to just put the drone back up in the air and wait for them to leave. Had I been on my last minutes of battery, that situation could have been much more stressful.