awfulize v. to imagine or predict the worst circumstances or outcome. Editorial Note: The first cite is an unrelated nonce usage. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
Years ago I was told that people in some social-science field use the verb “horribilize” in a similar sense. Sociology? It means selectively considering the negative aspects of a question and following their implications down the worst path. It’s different from despair or depression because it’s active. But I can’t document horribilize (or even be sure that’s how it is spelled).