Got a few of those under my belt as well.
No. Dont feel inadequate. I dont think anyone can honestly come out of a sim session and say they were perfect. We all make mistakes, as the old saying goes, better in the sim than in the air. just make sure you self critic yourself (as we all do) have a good think about what went wrong and learn from any mistakes, thats the important thing. Thats what I try to do. Share you experience with everyone you can also, we all learn from each other.
As for the captain blaming you all the time, well it says a lot more about him/her than you in my opinion. A good capt I believe uses every resource available (FO,CC,ATC,SOPS,FCOM,etc) to make a safe, informed judgement about how to best handle a particular situation. But you shouldn't be babied in the sim as it all falls onto you if some thing happens to his lordship, you should be able to competently get the aircraft back onto the ground by yourself in an emergency. It might not be pretty but as long as its safe and legal, then what's the problem? The sim is a training tool as well as a checking tool and I believe it should be seen that way.
I dont know who you work for or how they like to run your recurrency sim, but if you're getting snowed under, perhaps the captain should point you in the right direction and impart some of their knowledge onto you rather that just bag you out. Speak to some more approachable capts and fo's on your trips and get them to run through their 'master plan' with you. Take a little bit from here, a little bit from there and develop your own plan of attack for those emergency situations.
Lastly, it does get easier with practice, you will get more efficient at the whole procedure but you will still make mistakes, even 20 years from now. Dont despair over them, put them behind you, learn from them and move on to the next challenge. And remember this session in a few years time when you are a capt and you have some boggy fo who is in the exact same situation. How will you handle that?
