Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) confused, muddled, upset .

1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 241: We were regularly boxed up with the diggers, nobody knew who we were, or where we came from. [Ibid.] 356: They neither of ’em weren’t very smart at figures, and after they’d got to twenty or thirty they’d get boxed, like a new hand counting sheep.
1894		H. Lawson ‘Baldy Thompson’ in Roderick (1972) 107: His hobby was politics, and his politics were badly boxed.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 26: BOX, BOXED: in common use to mix or mixed. ‘Box the cards’ is a domino phrase. House-painters speak of boxing mixing two lots of paint.
1926		(con. WWI) ‘Sapper’ Shorty Bill 175: You might get trying it yourself, an’ get boxed up.
1936		N.Z. Alpine Journal VI (23) 228: All the mercies we had to be thankful for [...] how we were safe on this side of the Godley and not boxed up in Scone Creek .
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 65: Today a person who is in a quandary or confusion is said to be boxed up.
1949		R. Park Poor Man’s Orange 24: You don’t want to get all boxed up about it [...] Nothin’ll happen for twenty years.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 127/1: since ca. 1930.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 33: boxed/boxed up Lost or confused, from the tramping term for getting lost; to be in a box, to be in a confused state. ANZ from 1930s.