I regret cutting my hair in 2013.

[Beckstar]

I went from hip to shoulder to pixie. I was in a deep depression and I thought I needed a change. I wish I had not cut it so short. I've grown it out to BSL two times and destroyed it with color and cut it to pixie to start over again with fresh silver (50%) and ash brown natural hair. I've learned now to just stick with henna and indigo and join hair challenges.

[Stray_mind]

I went from hip to shoulder to pixie. I was in a deep depression and I thought I needed a change. I wish I had not cut it so short. I've grown it out to BSL two times and destroyed it with color and cut it to pixie to start over again with fresh silver (50%) and ash brown natural hair. I've learned now to just stick with henna and indigo and join hair challenges.
I think most of us here have been trough similar situations.

I don't really Regret cutting my hair per se, but i Do wish i didn't cut it That short. The grow back process is really time consuming. The thing i regret though is Dyeing my hair.
Ugh i wish i hadn't done that.

[Julescarm]

I had one regret which was cutting it 2 and 1/2 years ago. She took off nearly two inches. Way more than I emphasised. Last time I went to a salon.
It will grow back. But I hear you. Hug.

[Sarahlabyrinth]

I regret cutting mine short so many times during my life. I wish I could have grown it super long in my 20s. But, it didn't happen. At least I saw sense at the age of 45....

[Beckstar]

Now I'll be happy to reach shoulder length. That's my comfort zone. Who knows after that? BSL? Hip is pretty with my curls but I didn't enjoy the upkeep.

[Glitch]

I feel you, many of us have been there, you're not alone :heartbeat The most recent experience of mine was a giant chop a couple years ago in an effort to get rid of all the bleached hair. Not only was I unable to get all the color out (or else I would have had super short hair if I kept cutting further, which I didn't want), but was left with a major set back. Happens! The important part is finding out your preferences for sure, even if it was though the hard way. If I hadn't cut it as much as I did that time, then maybe I would still be curious about it now :) Instead, I know that's definitely not what I want anymore.

[Crystawni]

Naw, Beckstar. :grouphug: You wouldn't've known you'd regret it had you not've done it in the first place. Experience helps us grow (hair).

[Dendra]

Naw, Beckstar. :grouphug: You wouldn't've known you'd regret it had you not've done it in the first place. Experience helps us grow (hair).

I agree with that :) I got interested in growing my hair after resenting having to cut lots of my healthy hair along with the damaged dyed streaks.

But still, have a hug :flowers: starting from scratch multiple times must have been hard.

[Joules]

Over the past 8 years of me cutting my own hair I've had 2 significant chops: the first one (from between WL and HL to BSL) in November 2013 was necessary (I had to correct my own mistakes, lol), and the second one (from between WL and HL to APL) in March 2016 was a result of a total depressive meltdown, which manifested itself in dissatisfaction with how my hair looked and an itch to cut it all off. Back then I liked how APL looked, to be honest, but I was eager to grow it all back. Now I kinda regret it, I sometimes imagine that I could have already reached Classic, or maybe microtrimmed TBL and achieved great hemline. But in general no, I understand that back then I was going through a lot of changes that I had no control over, so changing my hair myself was very much needed.

And besides hair, I don't like dwelling on my past decisions that I now deem bad. If I made a certain decision, it means that at that particular moment it was right for me. Who knows, maybe some of the good things that happened later wouldn't have happened at all if I made a different choice?

Has anyone watched a movie called "Mr. Nobody" by Jaco Van Dormael? It's based around the idea of the Butterfly Effect (not the movie, the concept). It helped me to stop looking back at my life and regret my decisions.

[lapushka]

Yep, I feel you! BTDT. That is why it took me over 10 years to get to classic. I fried my hair to bits with color because I couldn't make up my mind between regular dye, henna/indigo and bleach and yes I had some "disasters" to go along with that. Started from chin twice over (when I was around bra strap), and from BSL when I had been hip. In hindsight... oh well. I had my "fun". And it's out of my system now. I am not near as impulsive as I was, in fact I've gone the total opposite.

I actually enjoy having my long hair now, and I think that is key. You have to be somehow ready to grow it out and stick to it.

[pili]

Has anyone watched a movie called "Mr. Nobody" by Jaco Van Dormael? It's based around the idea of the Butterfly Effect (not the movie, the concept). It helped me to stop looking back at my life and regret my decisions.

I may need to look that one up. I have a tendency to dwell on regrets.

OP, I so understand. I've grown my hair to waist+ a few times and each time I have chopped it to collar bone length or pixie. I'd have hair to my knees by now if I had just left it alone. Of course, I had not found LHC, so part of it was frustration that I couldn't DO ANYTHING with it. I've had pixies in 1991, 1994, 2007 (collarbone), and 2011. The last pixie is the only one where I have not left my hair to just grow with only annual trims, and it resulted in lots of setbacks from "deva cuts" and bleach. My last chop (and where I am now measuring my current growth from) was in 2016 to cut out bleach. Since then I have been just sticking to benign neglect. It "hurts" though because I would already be at TBL if I just hadn't messed with my hair so much.

[Lady Stardust]

I try not to dwell on things that I can’t change. If there are lessons to be learned then it’s important to take heed and not make the same mistake again. However looking back and saying “if only I’d done this instead...” would just bring me down.

I don’t have any hair regrets. I’ve had a couple of haircuts that I thought might suit me but didn’t, but now I know and won’t do it again. Better to try something out than never take a chance.

Maybe it helps that I was a teenager in the 80s where just about every hair decision taken by anyone could be subject to derision! It’s something to look back and laugh about.

It’s not the same when you make a decision because you’re in a bad place mentally, as you said Beckstar, because the feeling are all tied in together. I think all you can do is look at the positives - you don’t have to deal with the damage, you started with a good base for moving forward.

I really believe in looking at where you are now and taking that as a starting point, rather than looking back and thinking about what could have been. You can’t change it, you can only learn from it.

[Trip]

Man do i relate
Every time my hair got close to shoulder length the past maybe 10 years i chopped it off to ear i couldve definitely surpassed ssed classic by now but oh well
Now im at my longest ever which is just brushing APL sad lol

[Queenofpigeons]

Sometimes I wish I hadn't kept my hair short for so long, so I would not NOW be in the process of growing it past my least favorite stage. But I genuinely liked all those short haircuts, so I don't really regret them, and I really do feel like I got the short hair bug out of my system. At the time I really enjoyed having perfectly coiffed and heat-styled, teased hair and I had the time to myself to do it. I don't really want to do that anymore, and it doesn't really work all that well with my lifestyle.

[spidermom]

O.k., well, maybe you DID need a change. Now you need another change, but it's going to take some time.
At times, I wish I could just grasp my hair and pull it out to a longer length, but I can't. I don't really regret cutting it, I just wish that the change I now want - waist length hair - was as quick and easy to achieve as short hair.

[cailinbee]

I feel you! I feel like my hair history was a sequence of choices I made due to restlessness or dissatisfaction and I never taught myself to appreciate what I had. The longest my hair has ever been was about BSL, and that was after growing out a pixie that I liked -- for about a month -- before it made me deeply unhappy and self-conscious during the grow-out process. I think there's not one single hair event I regret more than others, but rather, the cascade of hair decisions I always made throughout adolescence and my early 20s that always came from a place of "trying to look cooler" or "trying to fix the last hair mistake I made" rather than choosing to have patience with myself and listen to what my hair and body really needed.

Even then, given my age, it was just a learning process. I'm going for long healthy hair by 30, and I feel like I'll have finished making dumb hair decisions.

[Dark40]

I've been there and have done that too with regretting in my life of cutting my hair too short. I'm glad that I'm now at MBL to WL!