In England, are people with an ASD considered disabled and/or vulnerable under English Law?

I was diagnosed in my mid-fifties on NHS. I am probably at the abler end and was diagnosed as having developed good coping strategies.

So I recognise a lot of people coming on here have much more marked and much more limiting AS. I'm trying to avoid using myself as an example therefore.

A distinction that might be valid though is that I did not have a diagnosis through two university degrees and most of my career. I wasn't bad enough to get referred for the ways people now known to have As got treated in the 60s, 70s and 80s, but I did have to struggle a great deal to get anywhere.

During my education and employment I did not have an explanation. People like me were probably lucky we didn't get sectioned or put on wrong drugs, as did happen to a great many. I wasn't obvious enough to warrant that. But I was treated as being immature and inadequate, which the medical profession usually dealt with by telling you to grow up and not waste their time. And I was sent to counsellors and persuaded to read various psychologies about people who couldn't cope, and relaxation, and things like wearing an elastic band on your wrist to snap to break anxiety loops. The help was rather superficial and best avoided.

So I lived through those years on a sink or swim basis. I had to keep going or end up impoverished. Immaturity didn't get you any living support allowances.

One of the issues I have seen discussed is whether getting a diagnosis makes you give up. I was mature and coping when I got my diagnosis. I'm being wary here of using my own example, being at the mild end, but I wonder whether having a diagnosis stops people trying.

We are back to this thing about Einstein, Wittgenstein etc....... people who showed asperger traits, but because they succeeded at something does that mean they weren't aspergers? They didn't have an explanation either. But they lived in times when eccentricity and individual oddity was better tolerated.

I was diagnosed in my mid-fifties on NHS. I am probably at the abler end and was diagnosed as having developed good coping strategies.

So I recognise a lot of people coming on here have much more marked and much more limiting AS. I'm trying to avoid using myself as an example therefore.

A distinction that might be valid though is that I did not have a diagnosis through two university degrees and most of my career. I wasn't bad enough to get referred for the ways people now known to have As got treated in the 60s, 70s and 80s, but I did have to struggle a great deal to get anywhere.

During my education and employment I did not have an explanation. People like me were probably lucky we didn't get sectioned or put on wrong drugs, as did happen to a great many. I wasn't obvious enough to warrant that. But I was treated as being immature and inadequate, which the medical profession usually dealt with by telling you to grow up and not waste their time. And I was sent to counsellors and persuaded to read various psychologies about people who couldn't cope, and relaxation, and things like wearing an elastic band on your wrist to snap to break anxiety loops. The help was rather superficial and best avoided.

So I lived through those years on a sink or swim basis. I had to keep going or end up impoverished. Immaturity didn't get you any living support allowances.

One of the issues I have seen discussed is whether getting a diagnosis makes you give up. I was mature and coping when I got my diagnosis. I'm being wary here of using my own example, being at the mild end, but I wonder whether having a diagnosis stops people trying.

We are back to this thing about Einstein, Wittgenstein etc....... people who showed asperger traits, but because they succeeded at something does that mean they weren't aspergers? They didn't have an explanation either. But they lived in times when eccentricity and individual oddity was better tolerated.