Originally Posted by gneiss

That's an excellent negative image. I'll go one better: I saw a TV show about a guy who kept large monitor lizards (not Komodos but some slightly smaller cousin). He became ill, collapsed and died in his apartment, where the lizards were allowed to roam freely. After a couple days with no food the lizards ate the only source of food available: the decaying body of their owner.

There's my analogy: something I dabbled in and thought I could control turned on me and took over. Kinda like a monitor lizard.