How do I get employed in IT/Programming again?

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I'm in my 20s with no real education or job history. I'm a self taught programmer and sys admin. I've been hired to do back end programming and sys administration in the past, but poor mental health caused me to just stop responding to my bosses and I lost the jobs each time.

I have a fairly good grasp of networking and have done some "reverse engineering" related to networking for clients, contributed to a high networking library, and written a really bad HTTP proxy with low level sockets, and done other things with low level sockets to learn more. I think overall I have a good but basic overview of this field.

I tried going back to the main Freelance websites and now they require you to have at least one credential related to higher education, and I have none so I cant use those sites.I secured my previous jobs through doing Freelance work and then getting taken on for a more permanent stint.

I'm working on a github portfolio and trying to polish them and so on to demonstrate my knowledge. I'm thinking of buying a domain to display my portfolio as well, but I really have no idea where to go from here.

I talked to a couple actual network engineers and programmers, and showed them my cover letter to a company and I was told it was really good and could land me an interview.

I'm working on getting my CCNA and certs, but I have no idea where to go from here. I started doing freelancing through a fellow friend who got hired to a real job through it, and now I cant freelance on those sites anymore.