乱れる
みだれる · midareru · JLPT N1 · verb-ichidan
to be disturbed
🧶 乱 = hands sorting tangled silk thread; once the threads knot up, things become disordered
The same tangle idea covers hair (髪が乱れる, messy hair), a crowd or line (列が乱れる), and a confused mind or feelings (心が乱れる). Each is something that was ordered and got knotted.
乱 — hand 又 + tangled silk 𠬪/乿 component
乱 is the simplified form of 亂. The traditional character depicts hands above and below untangling silk threads on a frame, with 乙 on the right. It originally meant 'to put tangled threads in order,' but came to mean both 'disorder' and 'to govern chaos.'