Why my reputation is (5), and I've been on steemit since July of 2016..

I joined steemit in July of 2016, and thought it was great. It was a fresh new platform that planned on using crypto currency in order to award creators. I found bitcoin about 6 months before steemit, so it was a no brainier to open an account. I began gaining ground blogging about my journey to quit smoking cigarettes, and really enjoyed the support from the steemit community. At this time steemit was having issues with bot's, and for some unknown reason I was flagged as a bot. I received a negative ranking, and my post weren't visible, but the steemit community came together to help. I was upvoted to a 6, and was able to be visible. I was frustrated because people that were creating an account started with a higher ranking than I did. I tossed steemit to the side because it seemed like a war that couldn't be won. I decided to come back, and fight this battle to get my reputation back. I'm open to any ideas our thoughts on how to build back up. My goal is to make it to a reputation score of 10 so I can post pictures. Please upvote! Thanks.