Hi, I am also questioning if I'm on the spectrum. I probably haven't done nearly as much research as you but everything points to autism. I'm kind of stuck in the same boat, I'm pretty positive I'm on the spectrum but without a diagnosis I'm scared people won't believe me or will think I'm making stuff up. I feel like if you believe you're autistic, you most likely are. And even though self diagnosis is looked down upon in some situations, this is just one of those situations that I view it's okay. Obviously the circumstances differ for each person, but if it helps you feel like you can be you, go ahead and self diagnose. Personally I don't feel comfortable with telling everyone what I suspect about myself, but those that are the closest to me know

personally i think correctly done self dx is valid and necessary in some contexts due to the issues in our medical system. that being said, I personally recieved a professional dx because I needed it to validate myself. But even with my diagnosis, I still constantly invalidate myself and still recieve invalidating comments from providers(which is extremely frustrating)

obviously i think self diagnosis is valid, especially with the current medical and political system, where providers are often expensive, undereducated about how certain disorders manifest in minority groups, medical bias and other ways that diagnosis can be used against you in the future.. and a hundred other reasons. i also don't know your symptoms, so take this with a grain of salt, but i also do want to say that if you're researching these things right now and you're just getting out of an abusive home, you should look into ptsd / cptsd as well. not only do autism and (c)ptsd heavily overlap, and being neurodivergent in this society in general can be traumatizing, but the symptoms can look incredibly similar, especially when they've been masked for years for your safety. i personally have both!