eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

i liked this movie after the one time i saw it, toward the end of last summer...but i like it even more now that i feel like i understand it a little more than i did then. recent events have left me feeling substantially handicapped by the mental and emotional resources which i find wanting in myself, and i wonder: would it be better if i could forget about them altogether? things like that seem to serve no purpose other than to provide life experience. most of the time such experience is valuable; we learn from it how to function in society and in large part it builds our individual character. yet, is it possible that there are some events or situations which turn out to be so traumatic that even the "valuable" life lessons come at too great a cost?
if so, would it not be better to lose the memory of the experience, in order to rescue one from the anguish of its aftermath?
of course, this is complicated by a variety of issues... mainly that one would also lose the memory of any positive parts of the experience, and that one would also be more inclined to repeat the same mistake. my mind echoes the sentiment of my junior high social studies teacher about learning from the mistakes of history or being doomed to repeat them. but if you're doomed either way, what difference does it make?
let's just hope that i'm not doomed, because as far as i know i can't have my memories erased anyway. so, this is a purely rhetorical question to begin with; and besides, i'm not sure i'd go through with it anyway. maybe sometimes one month can be happy enough to be worth the payment of a lifetime of anguish and regret. i haven't quite decided if this is one of those times though.
maybe it just depends on when the month happens... when it's already past it's hard to bear the pain...but if you knew that it was waiting for you at the end and you could look forward to it, then somehow it would seem bearable after all...but i guess that's an entirely different question...