Struggling With Shrinkage

My natural hair journey so far is going well my only struggle right now is "SHRINKAGE"! My hair is longer than what it seems and when I want my hair to look more longer its like I have to pick it out into an afro. It's annoying sometimes because this past weekend I went to a formal and I wanted to wear a headband to go with my dress along with nice curls but my hair ended up looking like a small curly afro. What happened??!! MY HAIR SHRUNK! Even my friends saw it shrunk. It sucked because I envisioned my hair looking a certain way and it didn't come out that way. Anybody else out there has that issue? How do you deal and what do you do? That's the questions I want to know though as always I will look more into that but I don't mind if ya'll can comment on it. #SHRINKAGEISREAL