I ask this question of myself, too. Sometimes I feel like I'm not getting better - I'm only going round and round. Not two steps forward - one step back. Simply round and round. I surely know that sometimes it certainly FEELS that way. But sometimes... If I really take a step back... I can see some kind of progress. For me, the biggest impediment to my life is that I 'freak out' sometimes. What I've noticed over time is that I freak out less frequently, and that when I do freak out it takes me less time to come right. Sometimes I think I'm just going round and round from freak out to freak out. Other times I think that I really am getting better with respect to frequency and duration, though.

I wonder if part of it is thinking about there being 'better' and 'worse' and about how life is meant to be about moving away from the bad towards the good. I wonder sometimes if life is simply a journey. We move forward through time (on one reading of the nature of time, anyway). And there isn't a 'better' or a 'worse' there is just a being... Not sure if this makes any sense.

Part of why I'm here is because the same inter-personal issues that I struggle with IRL come up in my online interactions. I find that the online medium provides a safer place for me to try out different responses, different ways of being. I can try out different things and see how well they work out for me. I mean... If one struggles with the same things IRL as one struggles with on the forums then being here on the forums might be the place to try and figure out ones contribution to the kinds of interactions that one tends to have. Hard work to be sure, but easier here then IRL somehow. And if some strategy works on the online medium then sometimes I find the courage to try it out IRL. I think that my IRL interactions are benefiting from what I've learned from my interactions on online forums.