What Seafarer Burnout Feels Like When You're Still Working at Sea
Seafarer burnout is something we usually talk about in past tense – after we’ve quit the job, come home, or taken time off to recover. But what happens when you’re still in it? Still working, still showing up every day, still stuck at sea with no quick way out?
I’ve burned out more than once while working on cruise ships. Not because I didn’t love the travel, but because of the job: the workload, the expectations, the pace.
And when you live where you work, it’s harder to tell when tiredness crosses into burnout.
I used to think I was just tired, or lazy, or not strong enough to handle ship life like everyone else. But over time, I started to feel hollowed out. Like my body was still there, doing the motions, but my mind had quietly stepped away.
Burnout doesn’t always look like crashing. Sometimes it feels like running on empty for weeks, pretending you’re fine. Forgetting things more often. Snapping more easily. Crying in a public stall, then going back to work because you're already late from break.
It’s possible to look like you’re functioning and still be falling apart.
This isn’t a post about recovering from burnout once you’re home. It’s about what it feels like when you’re still onboard – still working, still tired, still trying.
If you’re somewhere in the middle of it too, maybe some of this will sound familiar. You might not relate to every sign, but if even one feels close, it could be worth listening more closely to what your body and mind are trying to say.
What Burnout Looked Like for Me as a Seafarer Onboard
You’re still doing your job, but you’ve stopped caring whether you do it well.
I knew the standards. I’d always cared about doing good work. But I started letting little things slip. Mistakes I should’ve caught. Details I usually double-checked. And when those mistakes were pointed out, I didn’t even feel defensive. I just felt numb. Like I didn’t have it in me to care anymore.
You avoid conversations. Not because you dislike people, but because talking feels like effort.
I wasn’t angry at anyone (though even their everyday habits started to get on my nerves). I just couldn’t deal with the energy it took to hold a conversation. I remember feeling irritated when my supervisor tried to chat with me during a task. Not because of anything they said, but because I didn’t want to talk at all.
You stay in your cabin more, not to rest, but to hide.
There were days I skipped meals just so I wouldn’t have to face anyone in the mess. I’d stay in my cabin during my breaks, lying on my bunk, not sleeping – just avoiding interaction. Even a casual hello in the alleyway felt like too much.
Even when you're off-duty, it doesn’t feel like rest.
I used to look forward to shore leave. But at some point, I stopped joining group outings. Not because I didn’t want to go, but because it felt like another thing I had to do. I’d stay back and sleep instead. I wasn’t resting. I was escaping.
You resent everyone: the guests, your manager, even your cabinmate’s breathing.
I started feeling irrationally annoyed by the smallest things: the phone ringing while I was focused on something else, the way someone spoke to me, my neighbour’s habits. Things that never used to bother me started getting under my skin. I didn’t say anything, but the irritation was constant.
You forget what day it is. You stop counting down to sign-off. You stop thinking beyond the next shift.
There was a stretch of time where the days blurred together. I still relied on the schedule – we all do, since port days affect everything – but beyond that, the days felt interchangeable. Sign-off felt too far away to even think about. I lived shift to shift, just trying to survive the next duty, then the next.
You feel like a version of yourself going through the motions, but there’s nowhere to break down in peace.
Once, I was blamed for an error my supervisor had made. I knew I hadn’t touched that part of the task, but the confrontation still crushed me. I went to the public stall to cry, wiped my face quickly, and rushed back to work. No time to explain. No space to process.
You tell yourself you’re just tired, but you’ve been tired for weeks.
I thought maybe I was just lazy. Or not cut out for ship life. I kept brushing it off as normal exhaustion. But the tiredness never really went away. Not even after a full sleep-in. It felt heavier than physical fatigue.
You stop reaching out to home. You don’t want to explain what you can’t describe.
Sometimes it feels easier to stay silent than to send a message you don’t have the words for. How do you explain that you’re not okay when you can’t even name what’s wrong? You don’t want to lie and say everything’s fine, but you also don’t want to send a string of half-truths. So you say nothing at all.
If you're experiencing seafarer burnout, you're not alone. And you’re not weak for feeling this way.
These are some other posts where I’ve opened up about the harder sides of ship life:
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