As Gisele Bündchen‘s star continued to rise in the early 2000s, she also felt the walls closing in around her.
After enduing a bumpy ride on a small aircraft in 2003, the Brazilian-born model suffered her first panic attack, with crushing fears of enclosed spaces to follow.
“I had a wonderful position in my career, and I was very close to my family, and I always considered myself a positive person, so I was really beating myself up. Like, ‘Why should I be feeling this?’ I felt like I wasn’t allowed to feel bad,” the “Lessons” author told People. “But I felt powerless. Your world becomes smaller and smaller, and you can’t breathe, which is the worst feeling I’ve ever had.”
The panic attacks continued, which led Bündchen, 38, to a dark place.
“I actually had the feeling of, ‘If I just jump off my roof, this is going to end, and I never have to worry about this feeling of my world closing in,'” she explained.
The mother of two detailed the night she considered leaving her life behind, as described in her forthcoming memoir, out Oct. 2.
“It felt like everything in my life was going to kill me. First it was the airplanes, then elevators. Then it was tunnels and hotels and modeling studios and cars. Now it was my own apartment,” Bündchen shared. “Everything had become a cage, and I was the animal trapped inside, panting for air. I couldn’t see a way out, and I couldn’t stand another day of feeling this way.”
She continued, “The idea swept over me then: Maybe it will be easier if I just jump. It will be all over. I can get out of this. When I think back on that moment, and that 23-year-old girl, I want to cry. I want to tell her that everything will be all right, that she hasn’t even begun to live her life. But in that moment, the only answer seemed to be to jump.”
After consulting with doctors, Bündchen sought to change several aspects of her life.
“I had been smoking cigarettes, drinking a bottle of wine and three mocha frappuccinos every day, and I gave up everything in one day,” she revealed. “I thought, ‘If this stuff is in any way the cause of this pain in my life, it’s gotta go.'”
Following her breakup with Leonardo DiCaprio in 2005, Bündchen went on to find her happily ever after with Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. The couple wed in 2009, later welcoming son Benjamin, 8, and daughter Vivian, 5.
“When I became a mom, I kind of lost myself. It was like part of me died,” the model said. “I’d been this very independent person. It was all about me. But now I had this little being, and I suddenly felt I couldn’t do other things, and that was very hard for me.”
With her husband’s unyielding support, Bündchen and Brady remained focused on family, which also includes the quarterback’s son John, 11, with ex-girlfriend Bridget Moynahan.
“They are really flourishing to be the beautiful angels that they are,” she gushed.