The aim of this study was to examine what students with a foreign background think about mental illness (students at Karlstad University, between the ages of 19-25 years old), that are born in the Middle-East or have parents from the Middle-East. These students have been living in Sweden for more than five years. It was a qualitative study with ten interviews, and the interviews were analyzed thematically. In order to perform the interviews, an interview guide was used. The interview guide consisted of 20-30 questions, depending on how the interview went and whether any supplementary questions appeared, and also contained a short clip from the movie “A beautiful mind” Ron Howard, 2001. The results showed that there is a connection between people with a foreign background and a lack of knowledge about mental illness. The themes that appeared in the study were the following: conflict and fear, shame, repudiation, ridicule and the last theme where the view of mental illness. All the respondents in this study had experienced a negative perception of people with mental illness in social media. The main conclusion of the study was that in the respondents’ native countries mental illness is not acknowledged, people disassociate themselves from sufferers, and these are stigmatized instead of being offered the right care or support.