The 59-year-old supermodel - who previously sued CoolSculpting for $US50 million ($A78 million) after being left "permanently disfigured" by a non-surgical fat-freezing treatment in 2016 - underwent therapy following the 2021 procedure because she found it hard to even "like" herself afterwards.
"I have to go through therapy to like what I see when I look in the mirror, and I still don't look in the mirror. I didn't want to see myself because I didn't love myself or like myself," she told Harper's Bazaar magazine's Beauty Issue.
"I'm doing the work, and I'm trying to get to the place where I like myself, flaws and all, and trying to love myself."
Evangelista underwent a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018, but she is "fine" with the resulting scars, as well as those from other medical treatments, including operations following collapsed lungs on more than one occasion.
"My double mastectomy, I'm fine with it. I did put in very small implants. What they took out, I put in, cc-wise," Evangelista said.
"I've had all those lung surgeries, oh my God, and my keloids and all the chest-tube scars and my C-section scar. There were a lot of surgeries. I'm cool. I'm fine with those. I won. I'm here. I won."
Despite her struggles, Evangelista - who has 18-year-old son Augustin with François-Henri Pinault - is "finally getting comfortable" with herself and hopes to lead a long and happy life.
"I don't care how I age. I just want to age. It doesn't have to be gracefully. I really, really, really don't want to die. I have still so much to do. I'm finally getting comfortable with myself and with everything, and now I want to enjoy it.
"I want to be a grandmother, but not in the immediate future.
"I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive, and I'm going to do what I have to do. I'm going to fight because I don't want it any other way. I'm not done."
The catwalk star still undergoes Botox injections but has had filler dissolved from her face.
"I wasn't looking like me," she explained.
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