Chelsea O'Byrne was just 13 years old when she died by suicide in 2017.
"She was funny, very cheeky, but in a nice way, not in a naughty way. She was one of those girls that always put other people first."
Her mother Deanna Hughes will never forget her smile, her passion and the way she'd light up a room.
She told Today FM Investigates host Wilhelmina Shrimpton that her daughter's happy place was on the netball court.
"Just watching her being happy and just loving life, playing netball. [Was] a real special memory for me."
"She said she wanted to be a Silver Fern and a police officer."
But that dream was cut short when Chelsea took her own life in 2017. She was struggling with the death of her grandmother, her father abandoning her and on top of that was grappling with a cyberbully.
Her mother said she didn't know she was being targeted online until it was too late. Hughes said another teen was bullying her over a boy and threatened to share a secret online.
"She said to her, please don't, because if you do, I'm going to kill myself. The girl put an emoji and said do it."
"Not long after that, she passed away. I found her the next morning."
Hughes said in a new documentary UNSOCIAL MEDIA: Following the Trolls that she still struggles to put her insurmountable loss into words.
"It was like my whole world was gone. I couldn't function, I couldn't look after my other three [daughters]. I was screaming at them. They told me at the time I scared them."
"Yeah, it's the hardest thing to ever go through in life, to lose a child."
Hughes said Chelsea had struggled with her mental health but believes she'd still be here today if she hadn't been cyberbullied.
The cyberbully was eventually charged and sentenced to community work, but Hughes now wants work to be done to stop teenage cyber bullies from becoming adult trolls.
"I do believe that there needs to be education within schools. There needs to be programs for our young people, to be able to come together and talk about this and understand mental health. Understand, people are going through tough times, and words can hurt."
She believes part of the problem is keyboard hate has become too normalised.
"It's crazy, I go on Facebook now, and especially with Jacinda and the hate that she gets, it's disgusting."
"They've got all the balls and everything to talk on a screen, but you put them face to face … they wouldn't even say half of the stuff they say on social media."
If this article has raised any issues for you - don't hesitate to contact 1737 at any time.
You can watch the full documentary UNSOCIAL MEDIA: Following the Trolls above.
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