paint oneself into a corner

From the idea that a person painting the floor of a room may inadvertently apply the paint over the whole floor and trap themselves in a corner away from any exit, so that to leave the room the person has no choice but to step on the fresh paint and ruin it.

• "The Coens [Coen brothers] write their screenplays in a manner as unorthodox as the films that result from them. […] They paint themselves into a corner, plotwise, then perform whatever literary gymnastics are necessary in order to paint themselves out."
• "[Giuliana] Tedeschi thus rejects the mythicization of the Holocaust, in her book and in others'. By claiming a separate, privileged space for documentary writing and survivor nonfiction, she in effect paints herself into a corner, forced thereafter to deny the presence—even the abundance—of literary tropes and writerly devices in her own work."
• "In his diary entry from 8 January 1914, Franz Kafka writes: "What have I in common with Jews? I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe" […] [T]his corner could also, tragically, describe the place where Kafka feels he should position himself, painting himself into a corner, into a dead end, where nothing but bare life stripped of all existential substance and support can subsist."
• "Executives and businesses are often painted into a corner. They unwittingly lock themselves and their companies into a rigid bureaucratic way of dealing with rules, regulations, and compliance matters."

• back oneself into a corner
• box oneself into a corner
• get oneself into a corner
• talk oneself into a corner
• write oneself into a corner