Posting in AIBU for the traffic as I need a wide response please. Posting for my male friend - I'll call him Jack. If you can't be bothered to read the whole post as it's overlong, it would still be great if you could read the first paragraph and respond. Thanks.
As a child in the '80s, Jack's father (I'll call him Simon) used to punish him and his siblings using the buckle end of a belt. Jack remembers terrible pain, welts, blood and being unable to sit down comfortably for days afterwards. This took place during the middle school years. He doesn't know what label to put on these experiences.
Jack doesn't know if Simon's parenting was 'normal' for the 80s but he thinks it was. It's important now because Jack is dealing with massive psychological issues (he thinks he's on the narcissistic spectrum). He would like to get a clearer perspective on his childhood, which he has always believed was idyllic. Hopefully your replies will give some idea of how common - or not - his experience was.
For context, Jack has tended to see Simon as a god-like presence in his life. Simon is a highly successful business man and Christian leader. He is almost universally admired and has even opened his home to have kids from the foster care system stay for years. It's hard to see him as the architect of an unhappy childhood. However, Jack has spent time in counselling with two counsellors who both know Simon well (it's a small area) and they have independently offered their experiences of having felt controlled/bullied by him in a church setting. They apparently used the phrase 'narcissistic traits'. This was a revelation to Jack.
As far as the punishments go, Jack remembers feeling sick with fear each summer when report cards were sent home. He was the school 'nerd', targeted by bullies and suffering from dyslexia. Jack's teachers told him he was a disgrace to his family. Simon belted him for his poor reports because he believed it was 'a character issue'. As an adult, Jack asked his father why he didn't help him with his prep instead. His father replied that he would have found that 'boring'. Although the punishments were not limited to report card season, Jack still repeatedly says how 'safe' he felt with his father to protect him when he talks about his childhood memories.
Jack doesn't know where his mom was when the punishments were taking place. He remembers her being told to leave the room if she tried to speak when his father was disciplining.
As an adult, Jack successfully joined his father's business. During his twenties, Jack went through a long phase of being informally counselled by Simon and taking his advice to the letter (a lot of people seem to do this). Looking back, Jack is embarrassed by some of the things he did when acting on Simon's advice. Once, he wanted to start a relationship with a female friend he was 'dating' but didn't feel attracted to her. At his father's suggestion, Jack asked her to start wearing more make-up. When she took offence, Simon said she was suffering from 'psychological issues'. It might be relevant to say that Simon has also explained his mom's 'failings' to him in detail (apparently she 'emotionally opted out' of parenting him) and warned Jack not to 'lose control' of his wife when he marries. For some reason, Simon believes good-looking people are usually 'sinful' and thought, on first meeting his future wife (who is startlingly beautiful and younger than him) that she was so beautiful she had to be 'full of sin'.
Counselling has helped Jack to see that Simon isn't perfect today. As an adult, Jack thinks that he and Simon are probably both on the narcissistic spectrum (the difference being that Jack is worried about it). But Jack sees the childhood punishments as an error of judgement in an otherwise healthy upbringing. This leaves him at a loss to understand how he has ended up so lost and unable to 'feel' things, including empathy. As most psychological work seems to start with childhood, Jack finds it difficult to get past the starting gate. It doesn't help that Jack has very few memories of his childhood but has been told many, many stories about his childhood by Simon. Or that almost everyone we know thinks Simon is our state's answer to Billy Graham.
I have tried to suggest that the punishments may be too extreme to be explained away - perhaps they're a sign that Jack's childhood needs weren't being met in the way he thinks they were. He knows my view but it doesn't make sense to him. It's not my job to sort this out and I can really go no further to help. But Simon is a huge fan of second opinions and will think deeply about anything that is reflected back to him here. Thank you for sticking with me to the end (if anybody has)!