rabbit hole

a difficult, puzzling, or embarrassing situation from which there is no easy escape shoreline residents are finding themselves helplessly falling down a rabbit hole in their Sisyphean efforts to halt beach erosion Synonyms bind, box, catch-22, corner, dilemma, fix, hole, impasse, jackpot [chiefly West], jam, mire, pickle, quagmire, predicament, rattrap, spot, sticky wicket, swampRelated Words difficulty, node; hot water, soup; pinch, plight, quandary, scrape, trouble; deadlock, halt, logjam, stalemate, standstill; clutch, crisis, crossroad, emergency, exigency, juncture, strait