You'll know if you're getting better based on your recovery time and the severity of the episode. All of the things you described in taking care of yourself mitigate the problems, but do not erase them.

Just as an example, I've two unpleasant episodes in the last two weeks. The first was a huge fight between my parents and brother that I got caught in the middle. I gauged my success by my ability to remain calm and focused on getting through the issue, using all of the skills I've learned in therapy, but the second I hung up the phone with them, I had a massive fucking panic attack and was hyperventilating for a while. It took me the entire next day to recover. The skills did not make my problem go away entirely, it just allowed me to get through the problem before breaking down.

Another situation I had was that I started freaking out, had suicidal ideation, and a strong urge to harm myself for basically no reason at all. The measure of my success was the ability to feel all of those super shitty emotions, cried as hard as I wanted to, and eventually talked myself into calming down, went to bed, and it only took half of the next day to recover. My skills did not prevent it from happening, they just allowed me to get through it and get on with my life much quicker than before.

At my worst I was having a complete break down 1-2 times a week and taking days to recover where I would have maybe one good day in an entire week. This went on for months.

I think you acknowledging this as an issue is a great step. Now you should try to reframe the problem to acknowledge all of the areas you have succeeded and giving yourself some grace in the areas you still need to improve. It sounds to me like you're doing great though.