Third Person Controller Custom Characterstates

I can't find the answer to this question specifically anywhere. I can see similar ones about replacing the Run Walk Trot animations with their own, but what I need is more complicated than that.

I have enum CharacterState set up with different animation states like Sitting, Crouching, etc. I can get the animation to play, but in the Inspector it shows the CharacterState as Walking instead of the name of the animation I've input.

 if (Input.GetKeyDown ("q"))
                     {            
                        _characterState = CharacterState.Crouch;
             }
 
 if (_characterState == CharacterState.Crouch)
             {
             if (this.isControllable)
                            {        
             _animation.CrossFade(crouchAnimation.name);
                         }
             }

Sorry for the way I copypasted this. It looks a little weird.

But this is a sample of the code I have. It works the same way that the others do, and it shows the animation, but the CharacterState still says Walking.

Is there a way to make a constructor that says if (crouchanimation.IsPlaying) _characterState does not equal CharacterState Walking ?

I couldn't find the proper way to type that without getting errors, so either an answer for how to properly code that, or a different way to put your own animation States inside ThirdPersonController would be nice. Also this is C#.