I’m still new enough I can’t make needle recommendations, but my first project was a garter stitch scarf. 10 stitches on size 13 needles… yeah… that wasn’t much of a scarf.
when my mom tried to teach me to cast on for knitting I went cross eyed.
Similar experience to you with learning how to crochet. Right now all I can do is a chain stitch. And nothing else. No adding any height to the chain, just making a single long chain.
I've heard of people learning how to do really even tension by practicing chains until all the loops are even, so it's probably not a bad place to start!
You'll get there, though. One of the big things it took me a while to learn, is that when you are stitching you pick up both the front and back loops together for a normal stitch.
When you're working on your foundation row (stitching your first row into your chain), it doesn't count of course. Stick it right into the middle of your v.
Personally, I hate going from chain to foundation row, so these days (unless I need to make sure something doesn't have much stretch to it) I foundation single crochet instead. I learned from moogly here: https://www.mooglyblog.com/foundation-single-crochet-fsc/