Is the issue that you have no way to get to your plugins from the wordpress admin/dashboard screen?
If this is the case, you may have set your user as something other than an administrator. Although, if your wordpress installation only has one account, then this likely is not the case.
In the admin area (yoursite.com/wp-admin or yoursite.com/[yourwordpressroot]/wp-admin) go to users > all users and look at what role is next to your username. If you can’t access “all users” and can only access “Your Profile” under “Users”, then you definitely do not have your account set as an administrator.