Just about everyone who has ever undergone psychiatric care cannot ever get a medical. There is technically a process but it is extremely difficult and expensive.

Some conditions are uniformly disqualifying, for good reasons. But it results in a perverse situation where a regular person can choose to either get mental health care or fly, but not both.

Pilots don't suffer from depression, smoke pot, take many types of medication as a child, or have many other issues because if you did - the FAA might pull your medical and you can't fly after that. It can cost tens of thousands to try to get the FAA to let you fly again if a medical gets botched. And that is still an if...

If you’ve basically ever taken an SSRI, or been to a shrink, you auto-fail your medical.

Getting treated for cancer, for example, effectively bars you from flying. There are lots of medical things like this.

If these things are that bad, those same people shoudn't be driving either. And this is probably true. However, if you applied these same restrictions to driving, people would absolutely go nuts on you.