An hour before the police showed up to inform Debbie Palmer her son Chaise Thompson had committed suicide, she heard the sirens and knew in her heart that her son had been found.

What she didn't know, was that the news was already all over social media.

Chaise had been missing for a week and Ms Palmer was asked to wait at home because the police didn't want her to find the body.

"The police were on their way to come and tell me they found him because I live out of town. Suddenly my phone was starting to ping, ping, ping and it was driving me nuts."

When the police arrived to tell her the news, her phone continued to blow up and they told her to answer it.

"Somebody had posted that Chaise had been found and that no-one was to ask questions. This post was going off and his step father and father hadn't even been told yet, nobody in the family had been told and it was blowing up on social media," she said.

"His sister found out online, so did his cousin, so did a lot of his mates.

"I was being formally told by the police and it's all over social media and the police were fuming. Until you've formally identified the body and the family have been notified you have no right to say anything. We then had to rush around and tell everyone before they saw it online.

"I couldn't stop and grieve because I had to go and tell everybody, it's hard. I was just informing people and people are ringing me up going, 'is it true?' Then others were abusing me because they found out online.

"But I didn't post it online. I didn't post anything like that because I'm still dealing with the aftermath."

Clinical phycologist and Charles Sturt University Associate Professor Doctor Gene Hodgins said that the passing of Ms Palmer's son took control out of her hands, but someone posting the news online before she could, was another low blow.

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"When a loved one dies you feel out of control because you couldn't stop it, but for something else to be taken out of your hands, that shouldn't be; how you distribute that message and let people know, is tough," he said.

"The rug has been pulled from under her and then pulled again and she has had to mop up something she shouldn't have to in the first place."

Dr Hodgins said that a death would always come as a shock, but having someone to tell you in person gave extra support.

"It's a shock if someone tells you the news face to face or over the phone but at least it's coming from someone, and most importantly there is support for after you've been told," he said.

Dr Hodgins explained that the best mental health buffering was social support and social media had a "mixed history" with it.

"I'm not a social media expert but from a mental health perspective I would say think before you post. There is something to be said for just waiting, half a day or a day, being compassionate in the way you approach someone," he said.

"Social media can be instantaneous, but in this instance, sometimes just waiting and thinking is the best solution."

Dr Hodgins said when someone was suffering from acute grief, people needed to be compassionate and think about the person grieving.

"That can take a traffic light moment of stopping before reflexively posting," he said.

A policy in place by NSW SES states that no one but the police should comment about an ongoing missing persons investigation.

"We have a media policy and during a missing persons investigation we refer everyone to police media because it is a police matter," an SES NSW representative said.

"We may be assisting in the search but we do not comment in these circumstances."

The NSW Police was also dealing with social media situations after the death of Mr Thompson.

When the police turned Mr Thompson's phone on after recharging the battery, a text message was sent from the phone to his ex-girlfriend.

"She was at work and she broke down and thought it was a sick joke someone was playing on her," Ms Palmer said.

Police NSW confirmed this, and said that they "would never do something like this maliciously" but they weren't to know a text was going to be sent out.

Police NSW do have a specialised box that they can turn phones on that will dampen the signal to stop any text getting sent out, but in Mr Thompson's case they didn't think it would be necessary.

"They said they had never had that happen before and went into damage control mode. That happened about two weeks after he had died," Ms Palmer said.

"I hadn't cancelled his phone at that stage, but if I had cancelled it, it would have stopped that. But none of us knew that would happen."

In part two of this mental health series we will look at a mother's heartbreak; how it feels when people don't know what to say.

Remember you can get mental health support by talking to your GP or phoning one of the many phone support services.

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