ungovernable

Ungovernable means impossible to control or bring to order. Nobody is in charge, and nobody could be.

The word works at two very different scales. Politically it describes a country or a city that has slipped beyond the reach of any authority — the province was declared ungovernable. Personally it describes feelings and behaviour that have run away entirely: an ungovernable temper, ungovernable grief, an ungovernable child. Both share the sense that the thing is not merely difficult but past the point where control is possible. Unmanageable is the everyday word for the smaller version of the same problem.