The Autism Sonnets

Explaining Myself to Myself

Abstract

In this paper, I explore my autistic identity through poetry. I briefly explain the medical model of autism, diagnosed as a disorder through the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), highlighting the amygdala as a brain structure that is particularly affected by autism. I outline my writing process for this project and offer suggestions for practitioners or other autistic writers. I then present a collection of sonnets where I problematize the deficit-based pathologizing of autism in the DSM-5, contrasting it with the social model of disability. I conclude with my ambivalence toward getting a medical diagnosis.