It’s the world upside down. When the alarm goes off, Nikki, 11, kneels beside her mother’s bed to tell her to get up. If she sleeps undisturbed, she’ll probably make her a cup of coffee, she’ll get her dog out and go to school.
While Master Mark’s eighth grade Nikki draws a sombre chalk drawing of her father’s loss (see video below), her mother sits in the living room in her dressing gown and takes her meds.
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Mother Karin has a (borderline) personality disorder and often has difficulty with herself. Shopping, laundry, dinner, often it’s Nikki.
Her father leads a nomadic life, doesn’t keep visiting appointments, but then suddenly finds himself in the schoolyard with a sweet card or walks into Nikki’s house as a thief with a pack full of gift certificates.
Complicated
It’s all very complicated for the girl: who should she choose, her parents or herself? Master Mark is Nikki’s great support, but when she goes to the seventh grade he falls and things go wrong.
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‘I’m releasing something personal’
It’s “intense and unreal” to see yourself on a screen, says Nikki, who has just grown up, of the documentary. “All the scenes with or about my father remain painful. But really everyone should have a documentary about themselves. It gives you a lot of information. Now I can understand myself better.”
Find exciting how people will react. “I don’t know what to expect. I agree that the documentary has been made, but it is something very personal that I publish. I will have no choice about what to do and I will not tell people about my childhood.”
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Damaged families
It’s been six years since her mother gave documentary filmmaker Monique Nolte permission to let her camera into their home.
“With the pure intention of helping the children of damaged families,” Mom Karin now says about it. “I want those children to be seen, especially at school. Such a child must be able to feel safe there. It is not possible at home.”
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Karin also found watching the documentary intense, she says. Thanks to the ICU, she is now much better off than at the time of the shooting.
“It’s weird to see I was so in survival mode in those years. I realize the impact it had on Nikki. Now it touches me very deeply and I think: God bless, I’ve had so many people from health institutions around me. Why?” Did anyone really help me? I missed a guide.
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“Jesus, what have I done to her?”
The most painful moment for Karin is a short scene at the end, in which Nikki and a friend talk about the memories that emerge during therapy as they dyed their hair red and blue. “Things like my dad tried to kill my mom and stuff like that,” Nikki gives as an example.
“I was so mad about it,” Karin says. “The way she says it shocked me. As if she was actually quite normal. Jesus, what did I do to her, I thought then.”
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Over half a million Nikki
The documentary, which can be seen on Videoland from 6pm on Monday, is dedicated to the “millions of Nikki in the world”. And in particular to the approximately 577,500 children in the Netherlands who grow up with parents suffering from psychological problems or addiction. “65% of these children also develop a mental disorder or addiction,” reads the warning at the end.
Although Nikki is also taking medications in the film, just like her mother, she hasn’t been on any medications for over a year, she proudly says. She will soon begin training as a social worker and want to study neurology through HBO at university.
“I’m working hard not to end up like my parents. It’s difficult because it’s very difficult to get up from the bottom of society, but I’m confident I’ll get there.”
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