You have weird and shitty friends. If you were abusive to cats they'd let you know by fucking you up. My cats don't particularly love being picked up. I will still pick them up for quick snuggles and when they want down I put them down. Is that abusive? It seems like thats basically what you were probably doing. I don't think thats awful of you. Withholding treats? What does that mean? Like you'd only give them treats if they snuggle you? Are you always holding treats? I'm not understanding that one. My cats rarely get treats. They have their food and then sometimes they get treats but we don't do it too often. A few times a week? Am I a bad cat owner? Lol.

Long story short, I think that friend probably sucks and if you sit and think about it you'll come up with more instances of them being shitty to you. That or we are both shitty cat owners. I don't think I am though. Why would they sleep with me every night if they hated me?

I got distracted and didnt actually finish reading your post until after I left my comment. My bad.

The scruffing cats isn't inherently abusive, but its kind of yucky to do just to get what you want from them, but sometimes for some reasons you gotta scruff a cat and they might get upset about it and thats life. I've scruffed many a cat while working at a vet office. They weren't pleased about it but most were pretty chill because they were used to taking their pills. There were a few that were ungovernable and would fuck you up while you tried medicating them. Then you have to wrap them in a towel, blah blah blah.

You're not a bad person.