Remember?

My brain is working on a very deep level today - I'm pondering the significance of a memory. What is the main purpose of a memory?

There are different kinds of memories - some that we like to remember all the time, and some that we push to the back of our minds for the majority of our life. It's the second type that I'm interested in at the moment.

When you have a memory that's bad, and you've spent most of your life post-event trying to forget it, what happens when you let it come forward? There is the potential for a majorly cathartic moment when the memory comes to light, and it's this that people are truly frightened of. The thought that the memory could be worse than you remember, the thought that your whole life will change if you let it come back, the thought that your brain will explode with emotion and a realisation that you're not hiding it anymore.

Of course, there's a thought there somewhere that things will be better. They say it's good to talk about things, and not to keep it bottled up. But who can blame a person for being scared of the darkest recesses of our own minds? And once you've talked about it, there's no going back - whoever's ears your memory falls on will permanently have taken your memory into their own mind.

Does this mean that talking about something in your past is essentially passing the buck? Does talking about it merely let it out of your own brain, and into someone else's?

I'm thinking - should memories just be forgotten?