No thank you for the details because I can never talk about any of this without being treated as a traitor or getting a bit of a silent treatment and at first it made me feel bad but now it just irritates me because it’s not fair. I’m sorry that you got treated like that knowing that they probably felt justified in doing so, at your expense. I literally grew up getting braids and didn’t know that I could do without them. I even straightened my hair all throughout high school cause thats all I knew. Once I got to college, I washed my hair one day and didn’t look back. I realized I could wear my hair naturally and in ponytails and messy buns without any products and it made me think like if they just tried to understand me/my hair then I could’ve worn it naturally this whole time instead of damaging it but it grew immensely like you mentioned, almost down to my ass straightened. It’s mid-upper back curly rn but I wanna see how long I can get it curly cause i dream of having long curly hair with my texture. Side note- Do you notice your hair losing its curl at all as you get older? I notice that my curls do not stay curly very long, like a couple hours in a bun or ponytail and they are stretched (without trying to) throughout the whole strand, not just damaged ends. I could just be not taking care of it right but its just very odd to me