Plz help. is this some explorer.exe virus?

so my pc started totally tweaking out. the blue bar with the start menu keeps disappearing as do all the icons on the desktop. when i go to task manager and click: file>new task> explorer.exe it all reappears for about 15 seconds. enough time for me to open firefox but then it all disappears again. its so frustrating because if i open my doents or my pictures it disappears right when the blue bar disappears. what do i do? is it a virus?