Why did people start to consider they were autistic?

I’m curious how people started to consider that they were autistic. Like what was the catalyst that made you think ‘Maybe I am autistic’. Because I feel like my reason for considering recently feels shoddy at best. Basically, my family got a puppy and I’m the main caretaker because she is basically my dog. I had a clear picture in my mind what I THOUGHT having a puppy would be like but when she got home, it all blew up in my face. She was nothing like I thought she’d be, having a puppy was so much harder than I thought it would be. For the first week I was having meltdowns every single day over the smallest stuff. And even now, nearly 10 weeks later, it’s still hard to accept how much my home and life has changed. When my mam told all of this to a family friend, she said I might be autistic. To me, all this wasn’t a good enough reason because I’ve never had problems in school, I found it easy and never had an issue. I have problems with making friends and socialising with people but to me that’s always just been a normal thing for me, any friends I made were cause of circumstance or cause my parents knew there’s. But when I actually sat down and researched the symptoms, I felt like a lot more related to me than I thought. But even then I feel like I might be exaggerating. I’m just kind of confused and feel like I’m making this up but then I don’t know.