They were grieving the loss of a parent to COVID. Then the bullies came.

“I got on Twitter specifically to rage about the death of my mom,” she said. “I needed it. It became a room to scream into.”

But she wasn’t screaming into a void. When Ritz Sullivan publicly shared details of her mother’s Covid death, online trolls pounced.

“I was called a ‘f—ing clown,'” Ritz Sullivan said. “I was told my mom was never a real person. I was told that my mom probably had pre-existing conditions, so it ‘didn’t matter’ that she died.”

The experience has been disheartening. “People are just incredibly cruel,” she said.

Ritz Sullivan is far from alone. People who spoke to NBC News said such abuse ranges from online strangers belittling those in mourning to microaggressions from close family and friends who question whether the deceased really died of Covid.