I am experiencing the same! But I dont do the heat so I really dont know. I use a light protein once a week and have lowered to twice a month. I am sooo depressed. I just made SL and I dont know if I will make it any further. I dont wear my hair down either. I dont know what to do and I am so far away I have no one to help hands on.
Melissa Daniel, welcome to my world before I discovered the wonders of dusting ie trimming a tiny bit.
Until I was in my 30's, the most my hair ever grew to was SL. I didn't use much heat. TBH, throughout my childhood, using heat or wearing hair out was something we did for special occasions. A wedding, a birthday party. But to go to school or just for everyday? Nope. Low mani was the MO. My hair would be cornrowed or plaited in singles. Left alone all week. Washed every week or every fortnight then braided again. Granted I didn't know how to comb it so would break off chunks during combing and yes I wasn't gentle, but I also wasn't as rough as some YT vids show mothers combing their daughters' hair. My mom was very gentle with my hair and yes, if I made it to 6 inches it's coz Mom was in charge of my hair. It'd be shorter if I was left to my own devices.
Anyway, enter Wanakee and Brenda into my life and my hair broke that barrier. (I found Wanakee's pamphlet and learned about her regular trimming regimen and PSing, but my hair was too short for PSing and I didn't really adopt the trimming regimen until I saw the same echoed by Brenda on
www.blackwomenrejoice.com.) I think the reason Brenda's regimen resonated with me was it was so easy. I misunderstood it though and thought she said no moisturizer at all, but because I baggy nightly, that didn't seem to hurt me. She also had said to wash my hair when it felt dry so that covered the moisture issue. All her regimen asked me to do was wash my hair when it felt dry, and dust every 6-8 weeks using a very sharp pair of scissors. And in a year I made it to 5-6 inches
without my mom's help! (Ever since I'd been in charge of my own hair at the age of 13 when I started going to a boarding school that insisted we wore our hair out every day, 3 inches or so was all I ever achieved!) And in two years of Brenda's regimen, I made it to 9-11 inches.
Pictures show you what I'm talmbout:
While I don't have pics from my childhood when mom cared for my hair, this image here shows you the longest my hair ever grew, give or take:
And even when I was relaxed, this is the best I could achieve:
I transitioned in braids--which BTW had been my trusted hairstyle for years. And no, I've never had traction alopecia from braids because my hairdresser in Kenya was very gentle and I learned to braid as a teen so took over from my hairdresser years ago. So no threat of pulling here. I decided to transition because my new stylist (I was in the US by now) had suggested that my hair was not the relaxing kind. It was overprocessed by the time I found her and she just thought it wasn't safe to continue relaxing. So I transitioned to show her that she didn't know what she was talmbout; that my undamaged hair is tougher than what she encountered. I had an inch of growth when I decided to transition and follow the regimen I just mentioned, and a year later I was here:
^^That was a huge milestone! Never had I reached that far w/o my mom's gentle haircare! A year later, still on that regimen, I was here:
Folks think I'm crazy when I advocate trimming, and no I'm not saying hair doesn't grow if you don't trim like you might've heard from some misinformed folks. What I am saying is your hair ends wear away gradually and slowly break away so you never seem to make any progress no matter how much your hair grows. By trimming, you get rid of the weak "link" that was about to "contaminate" the rest of the strands so you have an end that isn't likely to tear up further because it doesn't have a crack. Trimming is a scary word, especially when it conjures images of an inch cut. But the trimming I was doing was tiny--what we call dusting on the forum. About 1/4 inch. I could afford to cut off so little because I didn't wait till my ends were split more than that. I caught them in good time...after only 8 weeks...just when the split was starting. So I managed to keep strong strands that didn't break away on their own. I was in control of how much length left, instead of leaving that to the elements.
So truly, my belief is if hair is breaking and breaking and not seeming to go anywhere, even after you change your regimen, it's due to wear and tear. But don't give up the good practices you have adopted because your hair is still growing. Even if the hair you're working on has reached a point of no return, the good habits will pay off. And in time, your hair will start to show positive results. As
Supergirl has shared before, it may take up to 6 months for you to see the fruits of your labor, because it may take that long for the hair that isn't damaged to grow to a point where you actually notice the improvement. The hair you have now may just be hanging on by a thread...so don't judge your success by it, but give yourself time to reap the fruits of the positive changes you make.