How do I forgive and get over my ex friendgroup (who I used to hang out with for all the time)

I met these people when I was very young. We would do everything together, hangouts, movies, homework and games; we always had fun doing everything together. 

That was until just 2 years ago when my mental health depleted due to family and personal issues: My fam was very busy with a situation out of their control, and it led to me being pretty much isolated from everyone at home. I really should've asked for therapy during this time, because I was doing a lot of damaging behavior, but I never found myself trusting the system. I had only my friends at this point...

The situation led to me becoming extremely depressed and very pessimistic, and I think I really needed my friends (or just a therapist) during these moments, and I should have recognized then that they weren't the best for helping me with my problem. I'll credit them by saying they did try helping me out here and there, some advice, some pats on the back. But I soon came to realize that not being the funny or happy guy around them anymore made them very uncomfortable and they backed off.

I still continued trying to connect with them during my worst moments; however, they didn't know how to deal with me or help me during my situation, so they pushed me to the side a lot of times, and sadly sometimes criticized on a few occasions. It's very hard to blame them and sometimes I still feel guilty talking about them this way because it wasn't REALLY their duty to take care of a friend who was going through things. Yes, I knew them for years and some people have told me they should have done something, but can I really blame them? We were young and very dumb; there are as many things I should have done different as them. 

Well, I ended up cutting them off for good after I decided that I didn't want to be near them anymore. It didn't benefit me being around them as it only reminded me of really horrible moments. The main factor that made me make the big decision (leaving a circle of people I grew up with) was the feeling that I was only significant to them during the first moments of my situation the rest of the time I was a nuisance; I know they cared but to what extent? it genuinely felt like they were a helping hand for a certain amount of time before they got tired of dealing with me. We were really only together to have fun and waste time, nothing deep.

The months after I left them were liberating, I had resolved most of my inner conflict by myself and to this day I'm still very proud of myself for healing from something so extreme and personal that once felt impossible to leave. I started working out, focusing on myself much more and stopped letting other's opinion on me define my value; however, I never fully recovered from that friendship. During those first months I was so full of anger, I stopped feeling sad all the time and I began hating them with a passion. I blamed absolutely everything on them and spent so much time with one goal: to be a person 100x better than them. Sooner or later, I found a new group of friends and things calmed down after that. I now firmly believe that hating the people who did me wrong is the worst decision I can make when comes to getting over them, even if it's an 'understandable' reaction to have.

BUTTT despite all that: I still occasionally struggle here and there. I sometimes find myself feeling awfully sad when they're doing all these things together and posting it on ***. I hold in my tears here and there when I go back to those moments and ask myself why they had to do whatever they did. I still feel mad and I always have to remind myself that we stopped talking for a reason.

I recognize that today, there's not much to do with them anymore; I properly explained to them why I wasn't going to talk to them when I was cutting them off and I tried my hardest to respect them after the whole thing.... no matter how I felt about them. whatever I needed to do was done and it didn't matter whatever they thought as that was now their problem.

I bump into them here and there, and if I'm being totally honest, there is never one moment where it doesn't hurt. I'm still struggling to get over them, and I still struggle forgiving them. It doesn't affect me as much as it used to but it's something that always quietly sits on my shoulder. I want to believe that forgiving them will be the key to getting over them and then forgetting them. I really want to forget them and move on, but they were at one point my people, my safe place to be myself. It's getting close to a year since I left them.