The study investigates the main aspects and the ideological function of the state is a sick person metaphor which was frequently used in the public speeches of the Greek dictator George Papadopoulos and which became emblematic of his regime. A specific variation of the metaphorical imagery, namely the state is a sick person in a plaster cast, has contributed to the creation of an idiom in Greek, signifying state or other repression and deprivation of civil rights. The idiom seems to be employed nowadays to refer to the current political situation in Greece, after the loan agreement between the Greek state, the IMF, the ECB, and the European Commission. The data examined consists of the public speeches by the leaders of the regime, as well as the Corpus of Greek Texts and recent media texts.