The husband
Nin writes occasionally about her husband, but if he ever comes up, the depiction is typically negative. She writes about what matters to her in her day which usually means lengthy reflections on her passionate affairs and absolute silence about her husband. One way to understand her relationship to her husband might be to say she does not write about him, which is evidence that she does not find him interesting. Her silent husband turned ex-husband is proof of her need for fascinating relationships.
The artist lover
The opposite symbol of the silent husband is Henry Miller. The diarist writes about Miller and his influence in her life as a lover and companion. As a lover, Henry Miller is absolutely thrilling, the diarist reports. She explains that her friendship to him also affected her art because they were able to talk at length about writing, swapping notes on the craft. The match is a perfect match, except that both Miller and Nin are already married to different people. Perhaps this is part of why the relationship was so thrilling.
The paternal incest
The most psychologically pertinent aspect of the diary is Nin's account of incest with her father. The relationship has been a troubling aspect of her life for her whole existence, she reports. She writes about her complicated relationship with him and the erotic tendencies that he exhibits. In the Diary, her father and Nin are reunited, and she decides to start sleeping with him. She really likes it, and she explains that it is disturbing in a cathartic way. The other aspect of this symbolic relationship to her father is her deep, unfathomable anger against him. One does not have to be Sigmund Freud to analyze this anger. The symbol practically explains itself; she is angry for her father's willingness to use her as a sexual object.
Travel and moves
Nin is in a cycle where nowhere feels like home, so she goes through a circular pattern where she arrives somewhere new, is enraptured in all the new exciting things to do and see. She typically falls in love upon arriving somewhere, like her lover in Acapulco, Otto Renk, or Gonzalo More, or Rupert Pole—she is sexually adventurous. Then, after a while, she decides to leave and reinvent herself, breaking ties to her former life. The cycle is evidence that she does not have a place that truly feels like home.
LSD
LSD is one of the most interesting inclusions in this Diary. This is true for multiple reasons, but not the least of which is that Nin actually debates Aldous Huxley extensively about the healthiness and mental safety of LSD. She reports having a bad time on the drug. In fact, she reports feelings of death and panic that made her believe she was going to accidentally have a heart attack and die. LSD is not a gentle drug by any means, and Nin's history of anxiety, depression, and the disturbance caused by her incest with her father are included in her experience of the drug. Aldous takes her to task on this, but ultimately to the reader, LSD can be seen as a symbolic experience where Nin encountered her dark side and her fear of death.
