Gisele Bündchen says that she fought against panic attacks, considered a suicide

She is one of the highest paid models in the world, married to one of the highest paid athletes. She can breastfeed with one hand while getting ready for a lingerie photo shoot, she meditates every day at 5 am and her family is so caring about her health that her kids do not want to Halloween candies

But Gisele Bündchen is ready to blow up the perception that her life is as perfect as she looks.

In a new memoir, Lessons: my way to a meaningful lifethe famous Bündchen, 38, reveals that she has already fought panic attacks and suicidal thoughts.

"Things may seem perfect on the outside, but you have no idea what's really going on," she said in a revealing interview in this week's PEOPLE issue, at the stands on Friday. "Maybe it was time to share some of my vulnerabilities and it made me realize everything I had lived, I would never change, because I think I am what I am because of these experiences.

One of the six girls raised in Horizontina, Brazil, by Valdir, a teacher, and Vania, a bank teller, Bündchen, a twin and middle daughter, said having spent her childhood feeling "not very special" . in a shopping center in São Paulo at 14 years old.

After a difficult start in the industry ("I was told:" Your nose is too big and your eyes are too small and you'll never be on the cover of a magazine, "recalls she, Bündchen had it in 1997, when she walked topless in the parade of Alexander McQueen and appeared on the cover of vogue the following year, as an example of the "return of the curve". Recognized for introducing a sexy and athletic look that has replaced the chic heroine of the '90s, Bündchen has become known in the fashion industry as "Brazil's breasts". landed a record $ 25 million deal with Victoria's Secret and began dating with Leonardo DiCaprio, making it a tabloid device.

But Bündchen – who is now married to quarterback Tom Brady – says his life in the fast lane has come with an overwhelming sense of anxiety.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Gisele Bündchen

Kevin Mazur / WireImage

After undergoing her first panic attack during a bumpy flight in a small plane in 2003, she developed a fear of tunnels, lifts and other enclosed spaces. "I was in a privileged position in my career, I was very close to my family and I still considered myself a positive person, so I really struggled. Like, "why should I I felt like I did not have the right to feel bad, "she says. "But I felt helpless. Your world is getting smaller and you can not breathe, which is the worst feeling I have ever felt.

When panic attacks began to lure her into her own home, Bündchen said she was considering committing suicide.

"In fact, I had the feeling," If I just jump out of my balcony, it will end, and I never have to worry about that feeling of closing my world. "

After consulting a specialist who prescribed Xanax, she decided that she did not want to use medication. "The thought of relying on something seemed even worse to me because I thought," What if I lose that? [pill]? So what? Am I going to die? The only thing I knew was that I needed help.

On the advice of doctors, Bündchen undertook a complete overhaul of his lifestyle.

To learn more about Bündchen's book, take the current issue of PEOPLE, on the stands Friday.

"Every day I smoked cigarettes, drank a bottle of wine and three Mocha Frappucinos and gave up everything in one day," says Bündchen, who also cut the sugar and turned to the yoga and meditation. "I thought that if that kind of thing was the cause of that pain in my life, you have to go."

After that, she decided that it was time to rethink her relationships. Realizing that she was "alone" in her examination of conscience, she separated with DiCaprio in 2005. In hindsight, she has no grudge.

"Everyone who walks our way is a teacher, they come into our lives to show us something about ourselves," she says. "And I think that's what he was. What is good or bad? I honor him for what he was.