PHOTOSGisele Bündchen Reveals She Considered Suicide After Severe Panic Attacks
Sept. 26 2018, Updated 1:30 p.m. ET
In her new memoir, supermodel Gisele Bündchen shatters the idea of her seemingly perfect life, career, and marriage to football superstar Tom Brady. In Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life, she drops a huge bombshell and confesses that she once struggled with anxiety and suicidal ideation.
The Brazil native admitted her twenties were a whirlwind time in which she picked up most of her unhealthy habits. She wrote, “I was basically relying on stimulants and depressants to get me through the day. Coffee to get me going in the morning. Cigarettes to punctuate the long hours and create a space for me at work without anyone touching me. Steak, burgers French fries, pasta, pizza, candy, and whatever else to keep my energy. Red wine to relax me and help me fall asleep.”
“I was living 100 miles per hour, smoking, drinking, eating badly, not sleeping much, and living pretty much out of a suitcase. It was intense! I was in transit all the time, either heading off or coming back from somewhere, which meant I never felt grounded or settled – or took the time to think about my life. It was just my life. And like a lot of people in their early twenties, I felt indestructible,” she added.
However, her fast life and poor self-care quickly caught up to her and she experienced her very first panic attack back in 2003.
That one panic attack lead to many more attacks, and sometimes “they would last for the next nine months.” The Victoria’s Secret Angel revealed that it wasn’t long before she become completely terrified of everything.
“It felt like everything in my life was going to kill me. First it was airplanes, then elevators, Then it was tunnels and hotels and modeling studios and cars. Now it was my own apartment. Everything had become a cage, and I was the animal trapped inside, panting for air,” she wrote.
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The panic attacks got so extreme that the 38-year-sought help from a medical professional. And though she was prescribed Xanax, she didn’t want to be forced to rely on pills, so she threw them out. Gisele’s anxiety and depression was so overwhelming she ultimately viewed suicide as the only escape.
However, the mom of two now admits that in a way, going through such a tumultuous and emotionally taxing time period was necessary to achieve the success and happiness she has now. She explained, “The difficulties that came so close to killing me, was in the end what gave me a whole new life. The most negative period I’d ever experienced became the most transformative and the greatest blessing. In many respects, that 23-year-old girl did die. But when she came back she was much happier and healthier.”
In recent interview with People, the model also credited the change in her mental health to a change in her diet and exercise routine. She said, “I had been smoking cigarettes, drinking a bottle of wine and three mocha frappacinos every day, and I gave up everything in one day.” In addition to quitting the sugar and caffeine, she also took up daily yoga and meditation.
“I thought, if this stuff is in any way the cause of this pain in my life, it’s gotta go,” she explained.
What do you think of Gisele’s shocking revelation? Sound off in the comments.
