hOnii,
this does not appear to be the case with myself at the moment, I believe I was tearing the hair which caused the breakage on. I checked my hair & could not find any split ends. I got my friend a hairdresser to check my hair & she said she could not find any split ends. How else could I explain the see through ends? My hair is getting thicker and the ends seem to be growing to catch up with the rest of my hair. I actually achieved about an inch in length in the space of 3 weeks, something I have never been able to do before. My conclusion is that gentle brushing helped. When I plait my hair in single braids, (I have 4 different natural textures), the only see through ends are now in one particular spot, in the rest of my hair the thickness is the same throughout the length of each plait.
I think that most of the time we equate breakage with split-ends when in fact we are not being gentle enough with our hair. When I used to relax my hair, sleeping in rollers and using styling gels, made my hair prone to breakage which I wrongly assumed was because I needed a touch-up. Yes I will eventually have to cut my hair, mostly because I want my hair to be one particular length. Why don't you have a look at No3 of the C & G technique "Combing & Brushing", the information combined with activator certainly helped me!