CINCINNATI (WXIX) – A Tri-State track star is now running her own service to help people improve mental health.<\/p>\n
Dr. Shantel Thomas<\/a> is a Princeton High School graduate and earned a full ride to the University of Toledo, where she remains in the Hall of Fame for her track record.<\/p>\n During her college career, she won the NCAA Woman of the Year for Ohio.<\/p>\n After graduation, Thomas decided to hang up her track cleats to pursue her other love of helping others become their best selves through mental health services.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a professional clinical counselor,\u201d explained Thomas. \u201cI do all kinds of speaking engagements as well as the crisis interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas currently owns A Sound Mind Counseling Services<\/a>, with two private practice centers in West Chester and Hartwell.<\/p>\n She says in years past, they averaged about five to six calls a week. Now, they are managing 20 to 30 calls for help.<\/p>\n \u201cIt used to be that you can get in within a day, and now there\u2019s a waiting list because so many people have become aware,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cThere\u2019s no longer this huge stigma attached to mental health services.\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas says growing up, she dealt with several issues and trauma that she didn\u2019t know how to handle at times.<\/p>\n \u201cI was an angry kid,\u201d Thomas admitted. \u201cI was fighting all the time through junior high and high school. I was the girl who was in ISS, getting suspended. I was being bullied, but then sometimes I was the bully. And so that became my story.\u201d<\/p>\n [Watch more from FOX19 NOW]<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n She changed that story after discovering a talent and love for running.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used to have the field day outside, and they had all the boys and girls run in these 100 meters, and so I beat all the girls,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cI beat them by so much I could turn around and watch them come across, and so they were like let\u2019s let her run with the boys. When I ran with the boys, I beat them, too. It just so happens I lived in Indianapolis. Wilma Rudolph was there. She drove me home, knocked on the door, and told my mother, \u2018Your daughter has a gift. We\u2019d like for her to join our organization,\u2019 and they trained me in track.\u201d<\/p>\n Training with the Olympian helped her excel in running beyond her imagination, breaking records with her schools, becoming an ambassador, and running for Nike, where she competed in races in Great Britain and Japan.<\/p>\n After not qualifying for the Olympics, that\u2019s when she decided to run a new path, focusing on school and another talent she discovered while running track.<\/p>\n \u201cIn high school, they called me the \u2018Chronicle,\u2019 as in the newspaper, because people would tell me things and I wouldn\u2019t tell, and so they said, \u2018You can keep a secret,\u2019 and they were like, \u2018Oh, here comes the \u2018Chronicle,\u2019\u201d Thomas said. \u201cWhich at the time, I thought this is a bad thing, I don\u2019t want to be known as a newspaper that holds everything. My track coach at the time, who was the psychology teacher, said, \u2018You can get paid for that. You can get paid to keep secrets,\u2019 and I was like, \u2018Oh, really?\u201d<\/p>\n That set her on the course to become a counselor, earning her a scholarship for her undergraduate and master\u2019s degrees.<\/p>\n While she\u2019s seen and accomplished so much in life already, she says her proudest moments are the breakthroughs that she sees within her clients.<\/p>\n \u201cI love it when I see my clients healing,\u201d Thomas explained. \u201cI really love to see people getting better. When I see them out in the community and they say, \u2018Dr. Thomas, we\u2019re still married and we\u2019ve been on the verge of divorce, but we\u2019ve made it work. We applied the steps and it\u2019s working.\u2019 The thank you\u2019s. I can see it in their faces and their smiles and the joy that comes from it for them is also joy for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas is also the founder of the Center for Healing the Hurt, a nonprofit that provides free trauma-based therapy center for kids and teens in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n