State machine - separate left and right animations

Hi, im currently having an issue with my state machine that is driving me crazy. Im pretty new to UE4 so the answer is probably right in front of me.

I followed the online tutorials for paper 2D but i cannot simply flip my image due to my character being left handed and holding a gun. I have separate animations for both moving left and right.

I currently have this set up…

I currently am comparing against a value of -0.5 as if it is set to 0, my character gets stuck in both the jump and run animations, and will only return to idle on what seems to be a 1-frame key press for my direction input. With a value of -0.5, he will return to idle from run and jump just fine, but will not return to idle left and just gets “tugged” right constantly. Obviously with a value of 0.5 he gets tugged to the left.

My event graph begins with get velocity and something between velocity and the axis value is preventing my character from behaving as intended. I have also tried making an inputaxisMoveLeft to match and also replacing get velocity for get move right but no luck.

I so stumped on this and am in desperate need of help. Anyone? So many video game characters have been animated this way but only seem to find 2D tutorials that involve rotating the character.