I need to be able to control speed and direction where when I move the potentiometer to the right it would go down and when I move it to the left it would go up.
If you have a pot, you can start experimenting with code that maps a variable from the pot 0 to 1023 output to a variable 0 to 255. Then use that variable in an analog write to PWM the LED on pin 13. Once you can brighten/dim the LED using the pot, then expand that code to forward/reverse an h-bridge that will actually control the actuator. Note that you did not request any absolute positioning of the actuator based on the pot position. This would require some type of feedback mechanism to be added.