What I'm going to say here,
panpete, is said supportively, not critically.
In just the last two posts you've made, you're demonstrating something the cognitive behaviouralists like to call "errors of thinking". I don't much like that term, because it somehow implies that certain types of thinking are "wrong" by some external standard. But they have a point, because the kind of thing that term refers to are often ways of thinking that sabotage any possibility of progress.
The first is in your apparent determination to be rendered powerless by circumstances, with regard to the dictaphone idea. It is easy, perhaps if we are feeling pessimistic or persecuted, to see there as being no way through, and that can sometimes (often!) tend to lead us to automatically assume there is no solution, and to find ways in which that is the case. With the dictaphone, as has been pointed out, these devices aren't prohibitively expensive, which means more than one thing: first, it is possible that you might be able to afford one (you could look on it as a useful investment
just in case you find yourself needing to record further interactions with agencies), but even if that isn't possible, it means that someone else may have one that they will be prepared to lend or give you. So, rather than seeing it as a complete obstacle, consider the possibilities.
Secondly, your predictions regarding the likely outcome of your assessment. Along with "mind reading", "predicting the future" is a common "error of thinking", and again tends to arise when people are very discouraged or pessimistic, often with good reason, about their prospects. But there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy, and if you go into situations automatically assuming that the worst outcome will result, you
are going to find that negative things happen more often.
It's interesting that, in a way, you are using the latter prediction to justify your choice not to try and find a way of recording your assessment - this is circular reasoning, as there is enough evidence on here to show that recording assessments can provide useful information with which to challenge them. Which would mean that your prediction of being put onto ESA, while possibly right at the point of the DWP decision, is wrong in that you will be in a better position to appeal and challenge the outcome.
Seriously - there are a lot of things you cannot control, but it seems to me that you are lumping in with them things you could control if you chose to. It doesn't guarantee a positive outcome, but the current approach is most definitely guaranteeing a negative one.
Think about it.
