Some events are bad in ordinary and defensible senses.
People are harmed.
Lives are disrupted.
Plans fail.
Loss occurs.
Calling every event neutral would erase important moral and practical distinctions.
Catastrophizing is a different move.
A difficult fact becomes a forecast.
This happened, therefore everything is ruined.
This problem exists, therefore it will keep getting worse.
I do not know the outcome, therefore the worst outcome is the one I should treat as real.
The forecast may sometimes turn out to be correct.
It is still a forecast rather than the event itself.
Separating the two creates room for accuracy.
What has actually happened?
What consequences are already known?
What risks are plausible?
What am I adding because uncertainty is uncomfortable?
The point is not positive thinking.
It is to give bad news exactly the weight the evidence supports without automatically adding an entire catastrophic future.

A reflection on catastrophizing: harmful events deserve accurate attention, while catastrophic predictions about what must happen next are additional claims that can be examined.

Some events are bad in ordinary and defensible senses.

Calling every event neutral would erase important moral and practical distinctions.

This happened, therefore everything is ruined.

This problem exists, therefore it will keep getting worse.

I do not know the outcome, therefore the worst outcome is the one I should treat as real.

The forecast may sometimes turn out to be correct.

It is still a forecast rather than the event itself.

Separating the two creates room for accuracy.

What am I adding because uncertainty is uncomfortable?

It is to give bad news exactly the weight the evidence supports without automatically adding an entire catastrophic future.

A Bad Event and a Catastrophic Forecast Are Not the Same