I swear: “I am not crazy!” » Why does a person who admitted to having humiliating auditory hallucinations for a prolonged period of time deny wanting to harm themselves or others? The person I'm asking this question to is a guy named Aaron Alexis. Mr. Alexis is the positively identified shooter in what some media sources have called a "massacre" at a Navy shipyard in Washington, DC. My theory is that Mr. Alexis denied thinking about harming himself and/or others due to the stigmatization of people. suffering from mental illness via the media. Stigma against people with mental illness is so prevalent in the United States that "38 percent (of Americans) do not want to be friends with someone with mental health issues, 64 percent do not want someone with with schizophrenia is a close colleague, and more than 68 percent percent are not willing for a person with depression to marry into their family (Internet). Alexis revealed to police a month before the shooting that he had "heard voices speaking to him through the ceiling of his hotel room, seeking to penetrate his body with the vibrations of a microwave machine to prevent him from sleeping (United States)”. Two weeks later, Mr. Alexis visited two separate emergency departments at the Veteran's Administration (VA) hospital for a week seeking help for what one article reported was "insomnia." Washington Post),” and what another article reported as “paranoia and hearing voices (United States). At this time, it is unclear what symptoms Mr. Alexis reported experiencing at the time of either of these VA visits, and because this incident occurred on a military installation, it is not known. cannot be sure of the transparency of other reports which might reveal this. .. ... middle of paper ...... actually it looks like he's tracking some kind of animal that he fears will jump out and grab him and make him the victim. If people are no longer afraid of the systems and get the help they need, there will be no headlines to report, and perhaps no mental health stigma, because people will feel free to get the help they know they need. Generally speaking, Baudrillard says that the mass media only has the power to influence my thoughts about mental illness if I give it the power to influence my thoughts. That being said, I can choose to question claims relayed in the media and educate myself and others about the legitimacy of those claims, thereby reducing the power of the media. This is exactly what I would like to do. In my research regarding the media's impact on mental health stigma, I found the following information: