Which comes first, anemia or low iron levels?
Anemia is a lack of red blood cells, or lack of hemoglobin (which is the thing inside the red blood cells which transports oxygen around your body to where it is needed). This can be commonly caused by iron deficiency, as hemoglobin requires iron to function, but anemia also has many other causes too. It would be technically possible to have both iron deficiency and anemia caused by something else, but there is an extremely high chance that the iron deficiency is causing it (especially as your iron levels are very low and have been that way for a long time), and this would be the obvious conclusion for a doctor to make. Anemia reduces your ability to perform physical activities and function normally. You are breathing the oxygen, but your blood is not capable of properly transporting it to where it is needed.
