I think for me it's a combination. I just had reason yesterday to decide to back up my on-line journal from another site to my hard drive, when I realized that I'd be devastated if anything ever happenned to my posts. So I copied it into a word doc. and saved it (685 pages - I'm long winded). I was glancing through it as I copied it and realized some things. I've been keeping the journal since 2003. In some ways things were way better, and in some things were way wosre back then than they are 9 years later.

I noticed that in a lot of areas my life has improved immensely. I'm no longer cutting. I'm a lot better at dealing with my emotions. I'm not suffering from the same degree of PTSD symptoms. I'm not trapped in the endless hell of relapsing and getting sober, rinse, repeat. In general I'd say I'm happier than I was.

I noticed that in some ways my reactions to things are very much the same - when I get overwhelmed, I shut down and procrastinate. One of the ways in which this manifests itself is the state of my apartment. I'm naturally a slob at the best of times, but when I get depressed, it really deteriorates fast. I have posts from 2003 saying how I've let my apartment get out of control again & how I have to spend the weekend cleaning. I have posts in 2011 saying the same thing. In fact I'm dedicating this week to cleaning.

And with other things I've gotten better at accepting this is just the situation and acknowledging that it won't change so I can just deal with it. My relationship with my brother falls into this category.

I do however have concrete evidence that things can get better with a lot of hard work.

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