Just disappointed in myself after my WCA
Hi. So, I had my work capability assessment earlier this week. Unfortunately, I am left feeling upset with myself. I suppose I just want to vent about it.
Here's the situation: I didn't research the assessment much, and I avoided thinking about the assessment beforehand to try and reduce the anxiety. I didn't take a parent into the assessment with me, we get along, but are not close enough where I can open up to them without a sense of shame. Instead a parent stayed in the reception. I brought notes along, but they were hard to read in the moment, and I only read out two lines at the end.
I basically have three examples of what sort of stuff is upsetting me and why I feel so silly:
I agreed to a few of the assessor's suggestions/ questions even though they were not true. For example, they asked me something like: "you go shopping for food with a parent in a store once a week?", I said yes, even though I don't go shopping for food in person.
Sometimes, I did not immediately understand the questions, so I answered incorrectly. There was one like, "you can't cope with an appointment being changed to 15 minutes late?", I asked something like: "like also if I am 15 minutes late?", they said yes. Then in the moment I thought about the fact that I don't attend many appointments, haven't had an appointment be 15 mins late, and that I haven't been 15 mins late to an appointment before. So I said no, as I haven't had the possibility to not cope with those situations as it hasn't happened (if that makes sense). I don't know why I didn't take the question as 'what if?'. My answer should've been yes, I wouldn't cope, I haven't done so with other similar examples (like having a last minute change to my work shift schedule). The worst part is I now think my WCA answer contradicts what I wrote in my UC50 form.
The last example I want to add is how surprisingly comfortable the assessor made me feel, and how that made me not fight for myself. The assessor would say things like: "I get that", "that's understandable", "you don't have to get into it", "that's valid", which made me more agreeable and go with the flow. I didn't get into further detail about things that really needed to be said. Before the assessment I assumed the worst, that I'd have a really stern and degrading assessor, I didn't mentally prepare for one that was nice, and I felt guilty for opening up... to be honest, I could go on and complain more, like how my assessment was under 20mins, and that the questions were asked fast, so much so that I didn't really understand/ consider/ or think about what was being asked and how to answer properly, so I just said yes and no a lot.
I just wasn't fully there in the moment, and it's making this wait for my WCA results difficult. I am expecting a fit for work result.
Advice I would give to my past self is: have a parent in the assessment with you (since I clearly struggle with masking and speaking up for myself), have short notes (even just key words, so when looking at your notes, it doesn't look like a wall of text), find that WCA online test (practice thing ?) beforehand (so you can see what sort of questions might come up and how many points you could score), take your time (even if the assessor is quickly going through questions, and you feel like there is urgency). Just overall think less about what the assessor is concluding about you, and concentrate on your health and how work would affect it.
I do feel a bit better putting my worries out there. I don't necessarily feel like the only person who messed their WCA up. If you are reading this before your WCA, I wish you luck and send you positive energy.