In the hit movie, Trainwreck, Amy Schumer’s character, also named Amy, shows us in the first half of the show how our childhood wounds can express themselves in our adult lives. Given the monogamy-is-unrealistic motto firmly planted in Amy’s young mind by her dad, she lives out that approach in adulthood, hooking up with lots of men and drinking to quiet any pain.

While lots of sex with lots of people can be lots of fun, the hole in Amy’s heart was never filled by the fun. That hole, or attachment injury, likely came from her parents inability to attach to her. Her father was caught up in his own life of infidelities. Her mother was likely caught up in dealing with her own feelings about her cheating husband. Then, when Amy and her sister were still young, their parents divorced.

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These early-life dynamics left Amy to make her way in life with no real tools for connecting deeply to another, but longing for that deeper union.  Consequently, we see Amy in the first half of the movie living a life that’s kind of a trainwreck.

Enter Amy’s principal love interest, Aaron, played by Bill Hader. Through Aaron, Amy faces the possibility that you really can feel deeply connected to another.  However, with no internal reference for such feelings given dad’s lessons about love, Amy gets mightily confused.  At one point walking and talking with her sister about Aaron, Amy has a panic attack. In this moment Amy’s desire to really love and connect with someone collides with her life lessons about attachment being dangerous.

Eventually, Amy gets past her fear. She and Aaron fall in love. And Amy begins to feel the deep satisfaction that comes with filling the void for love left by her parents.

Only if things were that simple.  Amy’s father dies. Aaron is there to support her. In Amy’s eulogy, she basically says her dad was the biggest jerk everybody loved. In this statement, you see and feel the seeds of longing for attachment to her dad, mixed with the pain of that very connection. It’s this pain and confusion that sets Amy into a tail spin after her father’s death.

After her father’s death, something changes in Amy and she unconsciously finds a way to sever the connection with Aaron. At a gala honoring Aaron’s accomplishments, Amy steps out to take a call from her boss, missing her boyfriend’s presentation.  He later gets angry with her, calls her out for that and her drinking, and the relationship ends.

At this point, we can imagine Amy’s heart saying, “Right, you wanted to truly connect with Aaron. Really!? I think you’ve forgotten one of life’s most important lessons: deeply connecting is dangerous.”

But life stayed connected to Amy.  Her antics cost her a job and nearly her relationship with her sister. But the attachment to her sister was one connection Amy could not afford to lose. So Amy chose to shift gears and clean her life up. Along the way, no longer numbed by sex and alcohol, Amy takes on the painful feelings of her father’s death, and begins to grieve in a healthier way.

In these ways, Amy comes into deeper connection with herself, always the first step in the journey beyond hardship. Out of this healthy relationship with self, Amy concedes that she still loves Aaron. And now with the strength born of self-regard, Amy has power enough to open her heart back up and reach to reconnect with Aaron.

In a wonderful closing scene Amy and Aaron reestablish their attachment, and a journey of healing begins for them both.

CLICK HERE for another blog series about Amy Schumer’s character in Trainwreck.