Raising Dylan

What does it mean to raise a child with severe autism when you're fighting your own mind at the same time?

In this raw and unflinching memoir, Joel Harper takes us from a childhood marked by trauma, asthma attacks, and sexual abuse, through a turbulent adolescence, an unplanned fatherhood at twenty-one, and a marriage that unraveled almost before it began - all while managing a bipolar disorder diagnosis that would shadow him for decades.

At the center of everything is Dylan, his son - beautiful, funny, fierce, and autistic. As Dylan grows older and his needs become more intense, Joel finds himself navigating meltdowns, psychiatric hospitalizations, school crises, police calls, and the agonizing decision to place his son in a group home four hours away. Through it all, he is doing it largely alone, holding down jobs, paying child support to an ex-wife who has disappeared into her own breakdown, and trying to be the father Dylan deserves - even on the days when he can barely get out of bed.

Raising Dylan is not a feel-good autism story. It is not a story of easy answers or miracle breakthroughs. It is the honest account of one father's love - imperfect, exhausted, sometimes failing, but always forward. One step at a time. One day at a time.

This memoir covers:

• The early signs of autism and the shock of diagnosis
• Navigating the school system as a single father of an autistic child
• Managing severe autism behaviors including aggression and meltdowns
• Psychiatric crisis, group home placement, and bringing a child home again
• Living with bipolar disorder while raising a child with autism
• Finding hope, stability, and unconditional love through it all

For readers of autism parenting memoirs, mental health memoirs, and single father stories, Raising Dylan is an honest, moving account of a father who refused to give up.

For every parent raising a child with autism who has ever felt invisible, overwhelmed, or completely alone - this book is for you.