Brush Stroke Overlapping

My problem is brush stroke overlapping and where the strokes meet in the middle it is way too dark. Is there anyway to fix this? I have a dry brush set and I'm trying to create a cristian cross design. I'm not actually stroking or painting, ALL I'm doing is one click with my mouse to place the paint stroke on the canvas. I do not use a wacom tablet or pen, I use my mouse only. The images I provided should show what's going on, but I'm not sure there is a fix because I'm not actually painting or moving the mouse to create a stroke, just a simple click for a small dry brush stroke and then a second layer for the next stroke, again one click and free transform to stretch it and rotate it. Then turning on both layers I get the too dark effect directly in the middle. I've tried belnding options, reading photoshop forums on brush overlapping and nothing is working. ANY help would be appreciated. THANKS!