You have already done a LOT of good work-- refusing to interact with dysfunctional family members, building a good life for yourself, developing an awareness of your "defenses" (pretending everything is fine), and your desire to deal with the issues you've already identified. You are in an excellent place to move from into seeking therapy with someone that will work well with you.

I can relate a lot to just powering through school and then realizing on my first job that I needed to deal with my stuff. For me, I think my wise inner self understood that first I had to become financially and professionally secure, and then I could get to work.

My experience seeking a new T (I've done it twice, once in the same community and once in a different one) is that recommendations from others, calling therapists in the phone book or online, and then the first in person meet can all be important. I've had a number of one meetings with potential therapists and for me, the ones I know I will not work with or can't work with are easy to spot. My personal preference is for therapists who don't claim allegiance to a particular school of thought-- I look for people who say they are "eclectic". Degrees or massive amounts of experience are also not terribly important to me-- my most productive therapy has been with a MSW, but that is confounded with just being older and having been through more self-healing-- I've also seen an MD and a PhD. I think for me, just calling therapists and leaving messages was the most important step I took, along with realizing that I couldn't give up just because I didn't like some of them. My current t is part of a large practice and I just asked to be assigned to someone who knew something about trauma. In some ways, I think I was just ready to do the work and it didn't matter who I was working with, I was just going to get it done.