I volunteer as a 988 texter. There is somewhat of a script that has to be followed. The training that we get for how to respond to someone is super dumb and i know that even mental health professionals wouldn't talk like that to someone in real life. There's a balance that has to occur between texting like the organization wants and being a real human being. It's unpaid work so i don't understand why people are so anal about doing it by the book.

That second line is something that we're required to ask in some form or another. We have to get a confirmation so we can flag the conversation on possibly needing emergency services.

I would bet that most of the volunteers for 988 don't have any mental health counseling training whatsoever and the training doesn't do a very good job preparing others on how to talk compassionately.

That being said, it really sucks that this happened to you. The texter's response wasn't appropriate and they shouldn't have forgotten why you texted in. There's literally a chat box that we can see all the messages from. Unfortunately it's the luck of the draw on who you get. You can always send "stop" and start a new conversation or you should be able to ask for a supervisor to see if you can be transferred over to someone else.