Hello!!

This is my first post since the intro, but it's sort of how I got here so I wanted to share.
Last November I got an ombré effect done at my usual hairdresser in my almost virgin hair (only the very tips were left of my previous haircolor, several years before). I don't know which developer they used but it was left on for quite a bit of time, nearly two hours (nowhere near my scalp, rather from the neck down and just two small sections from around ear length-down). Some sections of hair broke off with the bleach... I didn't think much of it at the time because I trust(ed) my hairdresser. They toned it to a beige blonde (my natural color is a dark brown, not too warm but I'm not sure what actual color it is). I was happy with it for a few months, but before deciding on the beige I had been torn between it and copper, so around February I decided to tone it to copper. I bought a box red, which comes with the pigment apart from the developer. I followed directions I found online (can't remember where), and mixed the pigment with plain conditioner to apply it, ditching the developer. I got a nice red on the lengths, but the roots didn't take any. I then became red-crazy and decided that a good plan of action was to progressively and non-aggressively (not!!) bleach my roots, so I started applying peroxide to my hair as a last rinse after every shower (daily). Not hair-formulated peroxide, but the kind that can be used to treat wounds or sanitize stuff. It's a 2% solution. Well, all was well at first because the bleached tone of my hair nearly matched the lengths, and I kept toning with the pigment-conditioner mix, and I liked my copper ever-less ombré hair. Somehow I wasn't exactly aware that the lengths were getting ever lighter...
So, fast forward to May. This makes it around one month of daily peroxide showers (left unrinsed until the next day), one month of once every third day, and one month of weekly applications. (I'm lazy with haircare, which probably saved my a$$ this time). I went to the hairdresser's for a haircut, as my tips were breaking out. I got deep conditioned there too, and talked about my adventures in haircolor, to which the hairdresser who looked after me ooh'd and aah'd. Well, they also told me I should be applying some sort of conditioning treatment every day, and washing with sulfate free shampoo every day, and using some sort of treatment too. I agreed and took it to heart, so I started a new routine, where I condition every day after my sulfate free shampoo, and I wear a leave-in treatment every day. I applied the peroxide shower once more. It was at this point I started researching ways to take care of my hair online. I came upon a term I hadn't heard before in regards to hair: chewy, or gummy, or rubbery. It sort of rang a bell... I researched the signs. I looked and touched and really LOOKED at my hair. It has that. It is that. Chewy. I fried it. And now, I'm obsessed with hair. It's been two weeks, mind you, but I'm really trying to baby it. Hoping I won't have to cut it all off. I've been growing it for a LOOOOONG time, and I'd hate to go back to a pixie cut. Thank goodness I found this forum, and I'm trying to soak everything up, to become knowledgeable about my hair, to get GOOD hair at long last. Oh my god my poor hair... I wouldn't blame it for falling off voluntarily just so it could abandon me. I've been awful to it, and I promise to never do it again.
Thank you for reading and sticking with me through this long post... and thank you for this forum
