General :: Droid RAZR MAXX Background And Notification Bar Disappearing

my Droid RAZR MAXX (4.1.2, not rooted) .So basically, whenever I have a notification in the notification bar (be it from the SMS app, WhatsApp, etc.) and I go to slide it down, the bar at the top disappears and then the background (the apps and widgets remain in place) goes to black for a few seconds then returns to the normal background repeatedly for several minutes. This keeps happening until finally the notification bar returns and the background returns to normal. While all of this happens, I cannot open any app. Upon selecting an app, it simply crashes right away. Doesn't matter which app it is. They all crash.

I should note that the exact same thing happens when I long-press the home button to bring up the running apps.

There have only been a few occasions where everything worked properly in the past few days. That is, I long-pressed the home button or dragged down the notification bar without any issues. I am not eligibile for a new phone upgrade until March 2014 so I am kind of stuck with this phone for now.