When you are sick, you can be rather undignified.
For example, you are confined to your bed and everything has to be done when you are in bed. This includes eating and excreting. Of course, this is assuming you are can eat and pass urine &/or motion at your own accord. Suppose you cannot eat or excrete by yourself, then you have to suffer more indignity i.e. have a drip or a catheter attached.
The other indiginity that happens when you are confined to your bed is due to your weak state, you neglect to groom yourself. If you are in hospital, the nurses may help you by offering you a mouth-wash for you to gargle with; a wet towel for you to wipe your face with; their help to wipe your body.
All these challenge your values that you were brought up with since you were a baby. All of a sudden, the values had to go out of the window!
We, the patients feel undignified because we had to ask for help for simple tasks that even toddlers can do. We feel violated and ashamed that nurses, who are strangers, see us in all our nakedness and vulnerability. But if you examine the intention of the nurses, they perform the services to preserve our dignity - to be groomed despite illness.
So it all boils down to intention and perception. And come to think of it, this also applies to all other things.
5:22 PM
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