COMPENDIUM!
Lies, half-truths, and hygiene de vie.
Montreal.
Johnny Vyanse, a U3 History and Linguistics student, is e xcited to begin his new Hygiene de V ie action plan after reading a r ecent interview with Deputy Provost Student Life and Learning Ollivier Dyens.
Johnny, who has spent the last several hours chanting “HYGIENE DE VIE, IS WORKING FOR ME!” at visibly uncomfortable tour groups in the M clennan lobb y, is adamant that the plan is the balm to all of his problems. “I t’s some - thing I was hesitant to try at first, ” he told the D aily, “but I finally made the leap . I mean, I w ould have never known that caffeine is a study drug!”
Johnny’s busy schedule led him to dramatically change his habits . As the pr esident of a departmental association and a r esearch assistant, he struggles to handle the stressors of student life , which is exacerbated b y his fairly sev ere anxiety. The start of the fall semester thr ew a wr ench in his mental health, as he w as suddenly faced with writing an honours thesis and applying for graduate school.
“He’s a complete fucking mess”, says one of his friends. “He’s in five courses because his visa runs out this year, and I’m pr etty sure that hasn’t slept for lik e, the past thr ee days. Yesterday I caught him running around Provigo tearing open bags of coffee grounds.”
The Hygiene de Vie action plan is comprised of man y individual steps: eating and sleeping well, exercising, managing time effectively, and abstaining from performanceenhancing drugs lik e Ritalin and Jingle Jangle, as well as coffee and cigarettes. Johnny insists that as a student who doesn’t have the time to do an y of these fucking things , the action plan will benefit him.
“I just don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner,” he proclaims as he picks walnuts out of a Premiere Moisson sandwich - his sixth this week. “Lik e, to offset the effects of being too busy and mentally ill to eat w ell, sleep regularly, and schedule things in adv ance… I just need to eat w ell, sleep regularly, and schedule things in adv ance. It’s so simple, but brilliant.” Zoloft is out –only Ollivier Dy ens’ Hygiene de V ie action plan will produce real change.
Johnny’s friends , ho wever, have their reservations. “H e quit smoking cold turkey, and it doesn’t seem to be doing him much good, ” says one of his classmates. “Also, he asked me to look o ver his application for this MA program in Toron- to, but instead of responding to the prompt he wrote a dissertation on the viability of y oga as a univ ersal solution for psychiatric disorders.”
Another e xpressed concern at Johnny’s sudden shift in attitude . “I have ADHD, and he’s really been a prick about my Adderall pr escription,” she confided to the Daily. “He keeps telling me that I can’t rely on performance -enhancing drugs as a substitute for maintaining a good hygiene de vie, whatever that fucking means . He also w on’t stop sending me links to Buzzfeed lists for kale smoothie ideas.”
Johnny’s regular clinician at Mcgill Psychiatric Services had this to say : “Who?” [we describe Johnny to her , and it seems to jog her memory] “Oh, yeah. In all honesty all of m y patients kind of run together at this point. I mostly see him to giv e new prescriptions. I told him that he couldn’t just go off his meds on a whim but he didn’ t listen. It went terribly. H e ended up coming in for a safety appoint - ment. The poor bastar d jumped the fr ont desk when w e told him there was no space left for the day.”
Psychiatric Services receptionists corroborated this . “H e tor e down our ‘ chocolate is cheaper than ther apy’ poster. It was fucking custom-made on Etsy. Do y ou know how much that shit costs?”
Johnny r emains hopeful despite his clearly deteriorating emotional welfare. At the time of publication, students were seen quickly shuffling away from him in Schulich as he snorted chia seeds off his desk, sobbing uncontrollably, the absolute wreck.
Ollivier Dy ens ev aded all requests to comment. We chased him from James A dmin to the M cgill metro station but he’ s just so fast. Why is he so fast.