And I'm saying YOUR usage is the colloquial usage. Just look at the very source of the term, Leon Festinger's "A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance" from 1957. here is a link

Chapter 1, page 3.

In short, I am proposing that dissonance, that is, the existence of nonfitting relations among cognitions, is a motivating factor in it's own right. By the term cognition, here and in the remainder of the book, I mean any knowledge, opinion, or belief about the environment, about oneself, or about one's behavior. Cognitive dissonance can be seen as an antecedent condition which leads to activity oriented toward dissonance reduction just as hunger leads to activity oriented toward hunger reduction.

He makes it clear that cognitive dissonance is the status of holding incongruous beliefs, NOT the status of discomfort. He states that cognitive dissonance CAUSES discomfort, and that people tend to seek to resolve that discomfort, but cognitive dissonance is not the discomfort itself. It is "the existence of nonfitting relations among cognitions".