CFL bulbs die young if you mount them with the ballast up, as in an regular indirect lighting fixture. It's the heat, I would guess.
I have some track lighting in a work area of our store and we put in a couple dozen CFL bulbs, non-reflector type, aimed down just because they looked neater. They lasted less than a year. The prices keep dropping on these things AND you can see SUCH a huge difference in color when you replace them; so we put all new ones. But this time we tipped the fixtures so the bases are not up - hoping to go more than a year with this batch.